Things That Internet Executives Do To Piss Me Off

I am by admission herein a Facebook nerd. I use it occasionally for work, but mostly to stay in touch. It's fun to drop one-line zingers on friends' posts, and see what their kids are doing. I am blessed with many friends, and enjoy keeping up with their lives.

The Information Age's most powerful new tool of terror.

I also have a couple YouTube channels, and I pin videos and cool pictures to promote my business on Pinterest. I use Instagram and Twitter and Hootsuite. With all these social media platforms swirling around in my browsers, it's tough to stay abreast of the latest online etiquette, protocols and licensing requirements. Accordingly, I can see how a buddy of mine and his wife just got their Facebook page suspended for running a single account that they both may, or may not, have used.

Now there's a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately: These mid-Michigan rural folk taking advantage of the platform to thank friends for wishing them happy birthday's, and allegedly posting pictures of deer under a tree stand, a big fish, and the cat, from only one Facebook login. It's almost criminal. But, something far deeper than that is wrong here.

I stay very current on ISIS/ISIL and Jihadists, Daeche, Hezbollah, and Boko Haram. I have a son who is a soldier, and another who is an Afghanistan combat veteran. I have dogs in the fight.

The October 21st edition of The Wall Street Journal, front page center above the fold, is this headline: Militants' Influence Spreads. An article in the same publication last week spoke to the incredible influence being wielded via the conduit of social media by the aforementioned organizations.

Today's front page headline detailing the assassination of the soldier in Ottawa, Canada: Gunman's Journey to Terror. From that article:

Investigators are now focusing on what the official called "his pattern of engagement" with online Jihadist materials or forums and in social media in an effort to understand what influenced his thinking ...

Turn a few more pages in the same paper, and the headline on the Op Ed page is, The Homegrown Jihadist Threat Grows. 

From the call out in column one:

ISIS's online recruitment is reaching into America yet the Obama administration still has no strategy to fight it. 

The editorial continues with these relevant lines:

The online radicalization efforts could also encourage "lone wolves" to undertake acts of terrorism within the U.S., similar to the two deadly terrorist attacks this week, both apparently motivated by ISIS's online communications.

Islamic State "operates the most sophisticated propaganda machine" of any terrorist group today.

Which leads to the question of why are YouTube, Twitter and Facebook executives providing a platform to people who routinely kidnap women and sell them into slavery, and kill and rob to fuel their Jihad. Anyone not completely aligned with their thinking is promptly murdered, or worse. They indiscriminately kill, enslave and maim men, women, and children, young and old, in monumentally horrific ways -- cutting toddlers in half, stoning kidnapped girls, and the ever popular "socially" propagated beheadings. Why do we give them a voice? Why do we give them a media platform?

In spite of this portfolio of terror, they claim great victories in battle. These victories are typically attained by swooping in on small unarmed villages in the dark of night. Yet, they boast of courageous battles won, and promise more "victories" to impressionable young men and boys (and U.S. women from Colorado ...) susceptible to their recruiting. It doesn't stop there. Social media is being used by Jihadists not only to recruit, but to threaten. Any voice of dissent is now openly and routinely terrorized online as a precursor to more tangible violence.

So, given the fact that the social channels mentioned above are being manipulated by our enemies, at the consequence of innocents ... a seemingly simple question:

How in the Hell do you justify nuking Tom and Tammy's Facebook account for violation of the single user clause in the license agreement, yet allow enemies of the U.S. (and about every other civilized nation) to exploit your online platforms to monger hate and recruit killers?

Am I off base here?