Obama’s email shows up on Anonymous hit list

The hacktivist movement known as Anonymous has drawn a lot of positive attention to itself as of late, for its announcement and subsequent following up, of an attack on the internet presence of Daesh, the group often referred to as ISIS or ISIL. However it looks like in its efforts to curb the online activities of the terrorist group, Anonymous may have siphoned up a few emails and accounts that could be considered collateral damage.

Within days of its initial announcement to go after Daesh in the wake of the attacks on Paris on 13th November, Anonymous claimed to have downed more than 5,500 Twitter accounts that were promoting Daesh activity. Since then a further 15,000 are said to have been taken offline or targeted with Rickroll links.

Some of those accounts though seem pretty unlikely to be linked with Daesh in any realistic way. President Obama's non-POTUS account was on the list, as was the New York Time's account and even a Twitter help page.

As the BBC points out, the very nature of Anonymous suggests that the unverified list could just contain a few extra accounts for posterity, or was edited later for humorous purposes, but it does suggest that Anonymous hasn't been quite as successful as it claims.

Still, many anons are keen to point out that while downing Twitter accounts is a major part in the war against Daesh, it is only one of many battles. OpISIS is still the main attack against the group they said, reminding everyone that OpParis is just the latest push. They also urge anyone who noticed any of the accounts back online, to report them to Twitter and other anons for further downing.

Not everyone agrees with this tactic however, with some suggesting that being able to track the Daesh accounts is more useful than taking them down. Anonymous argues that frustrating Daesh's ability to use online resources is a good method of showing solidarity against its propaganda.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Do you think Anonymous should be downing accounts, or should it be reporting them to the authorities for monitoring?

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