Twitter bans DDoSecrets for doing what WikiLeaks is known for
posted Sunday Jun 28, 2020 by Scott Ertz
Social media companies have been making strange moves in the past few weeks. Decisions seem arbitrary and inconsistent at the vest of times. Some posts from government officials advocating violence have been marked as dangerous, while others are promoted as honorable. One of the newest instances of this has been with Twitter. The company recently suspended the account of DDoSecrets, a government transparency hacker group that was making private documents available.
This group has been called the new WikiLeaks. That is likely because, during Julian Assange's absence while in a British prison, WikiLeaks has been far less active than in its past. DDoSecrets took up the mantle and has been releasing data in the absence. But, while WikiLeaks Twitter account has been unchanged, DDoSecrets account has been permanently suspended. Twitter has claimed that the suspension comes because the account violates the service's rules, saying,
We don't permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets.
Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.
This message was sent after the "BlueLeaks" post, releasing a massive 269 GB collection of data from law enforcement agencies across the country. In the current climate, law enforcement data is in high demand, as the vocal minority rage against the police. Why, then, would a post like this trigger Twitter to suspend the account, when equally damning and culturally relevant posts from WikiLeaks had no such response? Twitter claims that part of the move is because the site can infect users with malware, which is untrue. There is no such malware on the site. We may never know exactly what it is about DDoSecrets that has attracted the ire of Twitter.
