Online
commenters have praised an anonymous hacker's efforts to disrupt the
Islamic State militant group's social media accounts by filling them
with gay porn.
The hacker, who goes by the name WachulaGhost, started
targeting the Isis accounts after being deeply affected by the notorious
shooting at the Orlando Pulse nightclub in Florida in 2016, in which 49 people were killed and 53 wounded.
WachulaGhost started targeting Twitter accounts that supported Isis, feeling that someone needed to “stand up” to the group.
His activities - and those of his Anonymous-affiliated
cohorts - have been widely celebrated as stories of their successes
appear online.
WachulaGhost started targeting Twitter accounts that supported Isis, feeling that someone needed to “stand up” to the group.
His activities - and those of his Anonymous-affiliated
cohorts - have been widely celebrated as stories of their successes
appear online.
WachulaGhost
claims to have gained access to more than 250 social media accounts
affiliated with Isis supporters and sympathisers - and has received
threatening messages as a result of his efforts, which generally entail
filling the accounts with rainbow flags, pro-LGBT+ messages, images of
gay pornography and links to porn sites.
Speaking to CNN last
year, he said. “I get beheading images… death threats. ‘We’re going to
kill you’ and that’s good because if they are focusing on me they are
not doing anything else."
“We started to take over their accounts with porn and gay
pride images basically just to troll them. We thought that putting the
naked images would offend them."
WachulaGhost works with other hackers who coordinate their
attacks on extremist accounts - and he believes the social platforms
should be doing more to combat hate speech.
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“If the social media people like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram would stand up and do something it would help.
“Sometimes you have to stand up and make a change for the good.” WachulaGhost says he can
generally gain access to the accounts in under a minute, thanks to Isis
supports' limited technical abilities.
“One thing I do want to say is we aren’t using graphic porn and our purpose is not to offend Muslims," he added.
“Our actions are directed at Jihadist extremists. Many of
our own [group of hackers] are Muslim and we respect all religions that
do not take innocent lives.”
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