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Bin Laden Fan Clubs Go Online March 10, 2006 1:49PM
Militants are flourishing on Web sites. On Orkut, at least 10 communities are devoted to praising bin Laden, al-Qaeda, or jihad (holy war) against the United States. They can be found easily through a simple English-language search of the site.
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Al-Qaeda sympathizers are using Orkut, a popular, worldwide Internet service owned by Google, to rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism, and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners, according to terrorism experts and a survey of the sites.
Most jihadist message boards on traditional Web sites are in Arabic and require users to know someone connected with the board before they can gain access. Social-networking services such as Orkut, Friendster, and MySpace, however, allow users to create personal profiles and associate with "communities" based on shared interests. After users join one of these services, they have access to the forum postings in any public community.
These popular Internet services can be used for everything from publicizing a garage band to finding dates to connecting supporters of democracy -- or terrorism.
Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom advocacy group, notes in a recent report that Internet use has grown faster in Iran than in any other Middle Eastern country, largely because of its political potential.
"Weblogs are much used at times of crisis, such as during the June 2003 student demonstrations, when they were the main source of news about the protests and helped the students to rally and organize," the group's report says.
Militants, too, are flourishing on Web sites. On Orkut, at least 10 communities are devoted to praising bin Laden, al-Qaeda, or jihad (holy war) against the United States. They can be found easily through a simple English-language search of the site.
The largest bin Laden community has more than 2,000 members, according to Orkut's tracking data, available on the site. It has a link to the site of the Islamic Army in Iraq, the group that claimed responsibility for and released a video of a bombing Dec. 2 that killed 10 Marines in Fallujah.
"They're one of the largest insurgency groups in Iraq today," says Rita Katz, director of SITE Institute, a Washington non-profit that tracks terrorist activity online for government and private clients, including the Department of Homeland Security. SITE gathers data by infiltrating and monitoring message boards and other sites that terrorism supporters frequent...
Kathianne said:Yeah, they are really 'for free speech' look what they've done in China. :finger:
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Bin-Laden-Fan-Clubs-Go-Online/story.xhtml?story_id=022002GFF5Y4
