There are active campaigns to shut down ISIS on social media. Like the organization itself you knock down one account or leader and another one pops up. It’s not hard to set up new twitter accounts, it’s not always clear who or why a twitter account exists.
Actively shutting down all internet activity in an area is problematic because it impacts people who are valuable assets in fighting ISIS. If you shut down an area’s ability to access the internet you also shut down the ability of anyone in that region to report on what’s happening there.
In some cases the US wants ISIS related sites to stay up because it allows us to track their activities and locate their people.
If a member of ISIS is posting BS on the internet they probably aren’t killing anyone so it might be better to convince them to increase their online presence so they can waste their time arguing on the internet like the rest of us.
My point is that if the problem was “ISIS Internet company, Isisville, The Islamic State”, then it could be cut off. There is no such. ISIS doesn’t have a country, it is a militia running a hostage taking situation, on a large scale.
The problem is that the territory is part of Syria, where the west supports large parts, and anyway wars aren’t meant to hurt civilians, or part of Iraq, which is meant to be a nice place to live supported by most middle east and western countries…
I don’t see why you couldn’t do it. Unroll a map of the fiber optic lines. Cut the cables that feed into ISIS controlled areas. Bomb the power plants supplying electricity to the cities under ISIS control. Order all USA controlled satellite companies that offer satellite data access to deny coverage to that area of the world. Blow up all microwave towers that relay cell phone and data signals out of ISIS controlled areas.
I don’t think it would be nearly as hard as anyone thinks it is - if you had agents who could get the physical routing information off the equipment that is handling the packets leaving ISIS controlled areas, you could back trace ISIS propaganda efforts to the connections you didn’t cut.
Now, there’s still things they could do. You could only really bomb the big power plants and power lines, they’d have small generators and some power still. They could bury those or stick them in orphanages so they can’t be bombed. They could then keep making ISIS videos, and sneak em out on thumb drives and have accomplices not in ISIS controlled areas upload them.
If you’re proposing to cut communications lines into Syria, you will also be abandoning some brave humanitarian volunteers who are trying to cope with the refugee crisis, not to mention moderates or civilians who are opposed to ISIL.
If you want to cut off electricity, imagine that an ISIL-controlled town may have a couple hundred fighters oppressing thousands of innocent people. You want surgeons to work by candlelight?
And oh yeah - ISIL may just turn to using satellite communications widely available through commercial purchase. Thuraya isn’t exactly cheap, but it does mean that you can’t simply black out the Internet over large portions of a country by taking out an ISP.
The internet isn’t magic. A country like Syria or Northern Iraq probably has shoddy, spotty telecom service anyway. There probably are not that much actual, physical microwave links or fiber optic cables. The internet can be configured to route past broken links, and sometimes the rerouting is automatic. Sometimes a technician has to adjust settings. If you cut enough links, there won’t be enough bandwidth for all the users, and it may become impractical for ISIS to upload videos.
The US might be able to jam the satellite phone communications. Or blacklist every satellite data provider that gives service to areas in ISIS help territory.
I’m not saying it’s a good idea. I’m saying it’s physically possible to cut most of this.
What I’m saying is that doing any of that interferes with people who ought to be using the Internet or other communications. The Thuraya handset that ISIL may use to post a tweet is the same technology and links that important people are using to do important work.
To be blunt about it, how many civilians do you want to die because relief organizations can organize their logistics, just because you’re bothered by tweets?
That’s still assuming the users if the social media accounts in question are physically inside ISIS territory. Much of it is from sympathetic users elsewhere in the world.
I, specifically, don’t think the US should be cutting anything. I’ve read articles that say essentially the people that IS are fighting are also enemies of the United States. By pure self interest, the United States should allow it’s enemies to kill each other. The factions championed by Iran are the enemies of ISIS. Those videos are horrific, but the people fighting IS are roughly as bad.
In fact, factually speaking, the faction that the USA spend years fighting in Iraq over the occupation period is the enemy of ISIS today. So by fighting ISIS, we’re actually helping the faction that billions were spent in an attempt to kill.
The USA would serve it’s interests best by…quietly giving IS money and weapons and asking them to stop posting videos of their exploits. Ideally, it would “balance” the 2 warring parties so they kill as many of each other as possible.
ISIS isn’t the only group using the Internet. Civilians, aid workers, journalists, refugee hoping to connect with their families…all of these groups use the internet, often to do a great deal of good.
Some kind of massive block would just force ISIS to use other, less easily monitored methods, while causing real harm to others.
One way to hurt, albeit in a small way, the so-called ISIS on the internet, is to stop referring to this band of marauders as ISIS or ISIL (or even worse “Islamic State”) , and start referring to them as DAESH, which is what moderate Muslims call them, derogatorily.
Freedom of speech? Bawahahaha ( threaten certain people even in a joking way. )
If you believe that what the US Gv says it is doing has any relation to what it is actually doing, I got this bridge…
Great freedom requires great responsibility. I’ll take freedom over Gv control under 99% of most problems.
I am more able to personally defend my freedom because of the internet. The internet, it is a thing. It can not hurt us, only the people misusing it can hurt us.
Do we go after the thing, or the people misusing the thing., ( Gee, this sounds like another problem this country has with all the fearful people making the most noise. )
People and especially ideas can not be controlled by things in the long run & and in many short runs. It is not a thing problem, it is an ideological problem. Those can not be controlled or fixed by fearful backing away or depending on things.
If two ideas develop on opposite sides of the world, hiding one does not make the other go away.
Terch can not be put back in the box.
If all you can stand to do is help the good guys from positions of safety, OK but do not actively work against those that will fight & kill the bad guys so that you can do your thing in safety. The total history of the world shows that that way does not work. (IMO) ← note please…
