That Terrifying Moment When You’re Twitter’s CEO and Global Terrorists Threaten to Kill You

March 2, 2015

The Islamic State, or ISIS, threatened the life of Twitter employees, including founder Jack Dorsey, online this weekend after Twitter shut down accounts relating to the insurgent group.

ISIS called on jihadis to kill Twitter staff because the social media company keeps blocking their accounts, reports Buzzfeed.

The authorship of the threats are currently unclear. They may have been posted by ISIS sympathizers or they may have been made within the group. The threats, made on justpaste.it, went up on Sunday on Pastebin, an anonymous platform favored by coders. “Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you,” the post said in Arabic. It even included a digitally altered photo of Dorsey in crosshairs.

The comments, addressed to Dorsey, also said:

“You started this lost war; we told you from the beginning that it’s not your war but you didn’t understand and closed down our accounts — we’ll come back, but when our lone lions silence your breath, you won’t come back.”

Twitter told Business Insider that it is taking the threats seriously and is currently looking into them.

“Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials.”

Twitter’s terms of service ban “direct, specific threats of violence against others,” as well as hate speech and tweets that promote terrorism. Twitter has said it has over 100 employees who work 24/7 to examine sensitive posts on many different issues. Like YouTube, Twitter quickly deletes posts and suspends accounts that are perceived threats.

This isn’t the first time ISIS has used Twitter to get its message across. Last month, the terrorist group posted a video that urged followers to attack military officials and police in the United States, France and the United Kingdom. ISIS has been actively using social media since last June for recruitment purposes and to propose tactics to sympathizers.

Share this Article