The U.S. Army is flagging the popular blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported Sunday.
A recently released report by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion contains a chapter entitled “Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter,” which expresses concern over the increasing use of Twitter by political and religious groups, the AFP reported.
“Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,” according to the report.
“Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,” the Army report said.
The blogging service and social networking site has previously sent out messages known as “Tweets” faster than news organizations during such major news events as the July Los Angeles earthquake and the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.
“Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the U.S. as an operation tool,” the Army report said.
Jason Mrochek
Co-founder & Executive Director
FIRE Coalition
http://www.FIRECoalition.comhttp://www.firecoalition.com/blog/author/mrochek.aspx
