Twitter, Facebook are ‘in denial’ as terrorists use social media, head of UK intelligence says

TWITTER and Facebook are ‘in denial’ over the way terrorists are using their networks as command centres, the head of UK intelligence says.

Stock photo showing a variety of social media logos on a mobile phone.

SOCIAL media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are in denial about the fact they are the “command-and-control networks of choice” for militant groups like Islamic State, the head of Britain’s intelligence agency says.

GCHQ director Robert Hannigan alleged that the mostly US firms that run social media platforms are “in denial over the part they play in facilitating terrorism”.

He demanded they co-operate more enthusiastically with intelligence services to enable better monitoring of online traffic.

Propaganda ... a screen grab from an Islamic State group affiliated Twitter account purports to show senior military commander Abu Wahib handing a flower to a child while visiting southern Iraq, as part of the group's broad social media campaign. Picture: AP

“There’s no need for today’s would-be jihadis to seek out restricted websites with secret passwords: they can follow other young people posting their adventures in Syria as they would anywhere else,” Mr Hannigan wrote in the Financial Times.

His comments come as Western intelligence agencies scramble to combat Islamic State online propaganda, with jihadists often tweeting disturbing images from Syria and Iraq.

The US has also launched a ‘Think Again Turn Away’ campaign in Arabic to combat online Islamist propaganda by IS.

Online battle ... a grab from the US Department of State's Twitter page "Think Again Turn Away," criticises the Islamic State group as part of a broad social media campaign. Picture: AP

“Techniques for encrypting messages or making them anonymous which were once the preserve of the most sophisticated criminals or nation states now come as standard.”

He urged tech firms to ditch the notion they are neutral conduits of data that are above politics because “their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism”.

Calling for a “new deal” with web firms, the new GCHQ chief said they should be helping to protect law-abiding citizens.

“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.”