EBL: Rukmini Callimachi

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Rukmini Callimachi

American Power Blog: Wired: Rukmini Callimachi uses social media to get in the minds of the Islamic State

I criticize bad journalism all the time. It is refreshing to note a great journalist. Thank you for American Power Blog for inspiring this post with his post above.

This is a bit from the Wired article:

Do they use a lot of platforms?

It’s a very nimble group. In the past two years, they’ve been experimenting. Twitter is the main engine, but they’re also using Tumblr and Instagram, so they’ll have multiple tentacles to push stuff out. They’ve become so good at it, it’s unbelievable.

Do you wish the government and tech companies weren’t as good at shutting them down?

Twitter really needs to take them seriously because they’re not just talking to each other, to people who are already radicalized, they’re also fishing for people who are maybe interested and maybe not.

Can you give me an example?

There was the case of Alex, this young woman in Washington state—a Sunday school teacher who was as American as you can get. The found her on Twitter; within three months she had converted online and was flirting with the idea of marrying one of the fighters and moving to what they were calling a Muslim land, which was pretty clearly Syria.

Too bad Twitter is more focused on shutting down political voices they disagree with like Robert Stacy McCain and Milo Yiannopoulos. Meanwhile ISIS continues to operating on Twitter and Tumblr (imagine that).

I do not agree with all of Rukmini Callimachi's opinions. She supports gun control in a manner I disagree with. Fair enough. But at least she is upfront where she is coming from. I do not expect journalists to mirror my positions, but I expect them to try to be objective about stories they report (that is a hard goal to achieve). They way to do it is through honesty in what you report.