By Katie Rogers
In the volatile country of Somalia, the fight between militant groups has spilled over onto Twitter. The main opposition group al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked Somali militia, often uses the social media site to pick fights and proselytize to would-be recruits. One of the groups that opposes al-Shabab, the Sufi Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamea, also uses Twitter, but to a far less successful degree.
Compared to al-Shabab’s nearly 11,000 followers, Ahlu Sunna has only 74. And, while al-Shabab’s continuing to tweet about the latest disruptive violence it’s inflicting on Somalia, Ahlu Sunna’s last tweet offered an easy way to lose weight.
It’s not a new propaganda tactic. The Twitter stream appears to have been hacked.
It seems a harmless hack, though whoever did break into the account took it on themselves to privately message (a DM in Twitter talk) a journalist. Jeremy Scahill, the national security correspondent for the Nation, wrote, “Hilarious. Someone hacked Somali militia Ahlu Sunna's Twitter. Just got DM: ‘You seen what this person is saying about you? Terrible things.’ ”
On the scale of groups hacked just this week, Ahlu Sunna is a pretty low-profile group. Other victims: the FBI, Symantec, a huge anti-virus company, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Source: The Washington Post
No comments:
Post a Comment