Social media which controlled by large tech firms in US are blamed for supporting terrorist activities by the UK Intelligence.detailed news is follows.
Citing a number of popular social media sites, Robert Hannigan( the director of UK intelligence and security organisation GCHQ) says that ISIS is the first terrorist group to grow up on the Internet, and they're "exploiting the power of the web".
"The extremists of ISIS use messaging and social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, and a language their peers understand," "The extremists of ISIS use messaging and social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, and a language their peers understand," he says. "The videos they post of themselves attacking towns, firing weapons or detonating explosives have a self-conscious online gaming quality."
"Their use of the World Cup and Ebola hashtags to insert the ISIS message into a wider news feed, and their ability to send 40,000 tweets a day during the advance on Mosul without triggering spam controls, illustrates their ease with new media."
Hannigan insists that GCHQ, along with MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, can't tackle terror without support from the dominant US technology companies.
"They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics," he said. "But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism."
"However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us."
Hannigan also noted a shift in attitudes to online media from terrorist organisations.
"Where al-Qaeda and its affiliates saw the Internet as a place to disseminate material anonymously or meet in “dark spaces”, ISIS has embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people, and radicalise new recruits," he wrote.
His comments were met with dismay in some quarters. Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, said: “It’s disappointing to see GCHQ’s new director refer to the Internet – the greatest tool for innovation, access to education and communication humankind has ever known – as a command-and-control network for terrorists.”
Labour Party MP Tom Watson was cautiously optimistic, saying that Hannigan's comments could help draw a line on privacy. However he insisted: “I hope they do not confuse the use of public propaganda through social media by extremists with the use of the covert communications. It is illogical to say that because ISIS use Twitter, all our metadata should be collected without warrant It is illogical to say that because ISIS use Twitter, all our metadata should be collected without warrant.”
Efforts are already underway in the UK to tackle online extremism.
Security minister James Brokenshire met recently with representatives from technology companies - including Google, Microsoft and Facebook - in Luxembourg, the BBC reports.
The government's Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), meanwhile, has removed more than 49,000 pieces of content that "encourages or glorifies acts of terrorism".
Hannigan formally took over the role of director of GCHQ at the end of October.
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