,
15 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
I want to write a long twitter thread about this tweet from @techvsterrorism (which is funded by @Google @Microsoft @Facebook and @Telefonicahighly) and is misleading and misrepresenting the value of FOSS in a self-proclaimed purpose of battling tech against terrorism. (1/15)
Both @Google and @Microsoft have been utilizing open-source software for the developement of their products. Althoug historically against FOSS, @microsoft acquired @github in 2018 - the beacon of open source and @google "believes that open source is good for everyone".(2/15)
This post misrepresents what FOSS is in a scaremongering way: That because people can establish social networks through decentralised platforms, with no central authority and control, that will facilitate the creation of terrorist organizations.(3/15)
Let me tell you about another open and decentralised digital technology that has existed for over 50 years: The Email. The SMTP protocol is also a technology terrorists can use to organize themselves via emailing lists. Scary. (4/15)
Another one is the IRC - internet relay chat. They could also use Bulletin boards or even create their own proprietary network if they wished to do so. Even use pen and paper! (5/15)
The straw-man argument that open source is dangerous because of lack of central authority is a misunderstanding at the very best - plain lobbying on part of @techvsterrorism on behalf of proprietary social networks their represent in the worst case scenario.(6/15)
Another issue @techvsterrorism raise is that the open source licensing does not explicitly prohibit the use of their technology for terrorist purposes. Have you heard of the terrorist that went through all the gun classes in the EU in order to obtain a license? (7/15)
Terrorists are not law-abiding people by definition. They are there to cause terror. If they abide to the law, it is for the purpose of blending in and creating false sense of security, not because they actually respect it. (8/15)
The observation that open source licenses don't prohibit the use of their development for the purpose of terrorism is *gasp* ground-breaking. Last time I knew, the pen and paper technology does not prohibit the use of that tech for the purpose of terrorism. (9/15)
The final issue here is that Terrorists are extremely rare in the ecosystem of users on platforms in general. Terrorists are the exception - not the rule. (10/15)
@twitter has taken 166,513 terrorist accounts down according to their 2018 report which probably refers to the 2015-2018 period. Fantastic-but currently there are 326 million monthly users active on Twitter.(11/15)
Sorry for my possible bad math - but that means that 0.05% of users in that period were flagged as terrorists. Good thing that they were taken down - but it demonstrates how "rare" - for lack of better term - terrorists actually are. (12/15)
This leads us to the base-rate fallacy: because the base rate of terrorists is so low compared to the base-rate of the non-terrorists that even though you're 99% sure that you've found a terrorist, it is much more likely that you've actually found a non-terrorist.(13/15)
Finding terrorists is like finding a needle in a haystack: very very difficult. Doesn't matter if they use open source software or smoke signals. That's why we have the law-enforcement to catch the baddies, and are doing a good job: europol.europa.eu/activities-ser… (14/15)
TL;DR this analysis is misleading, creating a strawman from a completely legitimate services and philosophies, does not add anything substantive to the debate about how to prevent terrorism that can be of use, except for political propaganda for proprietary platforms. (15/15)
