Twitter has said it will ban users for tweeting graphic images of the execution of the American journalist James Foley.
Twitter has said it will ban users for tweeting graphic images of the execution of the American journalist James Foley.
In a message via the social networking site, its chief executive, Dick Costolo, said the site had been looking at and suspending accounts seen to have been tweeting images.
We have been and are actively suspending accounts as we discover them related to this graphic imagery. Thank you https://t.co/jaYQBKVbBF
— dick costolo (@dickc) August 20, 2014
It is unclear at this writing how many accounts have been suspended because of the tweeting of images. Kettle is awaiting a response from Twitter seeking comment on the subject.
The video of Foley, seen to be beheaded, was released to the internet last night. Foley had been in Syria when he disappeared in November 2012 whilst covering the area on a freelance basis for the French news agency Agence France-Presse and the publication Global Post, based in Boston, Massachusetts.
In a statement obtained by The New York Times, Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the US National Security Council, said the act was appalling, and US officials were trying to authenticate the video.
“We have seen a video that purports to be the murder of U.S. citizen James Foley by ISIL,” Hayden said. “The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity. If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist.”
‘Shocking and depraved’
The Times report added that US President Barack Obama had been briefed regarding the video.
Reached by email Wednesday, Hayden told Kettle there had been no updates beyond that statement.
In London, Prime Minister David Cameron has returned to Downing Street from his holidays to lead the reply from the government regarding Foley’s murder, meeting with officials including Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Cameron said the murder was shocking and depraved should the video be confirmed.
Hammond, in an interview with Radio 4’s Today programme, said it was brutal, and an example of the catalogue of brutality by ISIL, and said it looked to be official.
Have your say on James Foley and the actions taken in the comments section below. Kettle is following this story and any updates will be posted when they are available.
Image: Marisa Allegra Williams / Twitter Inc. / Flickr
