Twitter shuts down Republican’s account for targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar

Agencies
November 30, 2019

Washington, Nov 30: In an apparent warning to US President Donald Trump, Twitter has shut down Republican Danielle Stella's account after she tweeted twice about hanging her Democrat opponent Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota).

Stella, a candidate in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, posted: "If it is proven @IlhanMN passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged."

According to a report in The Washington Post on Friday, Twitter permanently closed Stella's campaign and personal accounts for "repeated violations of the Twitter rules."

Omar has been a frequent target of smears and attacks by Trump and his supporters.

In an action unprecedented in modern times, the House of Representatives in July this year passed a resolution condemning Trump and denounced his "racist comments" against four leftist, non-white women Representatives after a chaotic debate.

Trump had tweeted that the "Progressive" Democrat Congresswomen should "go back and fix the totally broken and crime-infested places they came from".

Of the four Congresswomen, Omar was born abroad in Somalia, but she is an American citizen.

The other three, Alexandra Ocasio Cortes, who is of Puerto Rican descent, Ayanna Presley, who is African American, and Palestinian American Rashid Tlaib were born in the US.

"In April, Omar said she experienced an increase in death threats after Trump tweeted about a speech she had given the month before," reports CNN.

Stella's account also tweeted a link to a blog post about her comment and added an image of a stick-figure being hanged.

Stella was quoted as saying in media reports that her suspension "for advocating for the enforcement of federal code proves Twitter will always side with and fight to protect terrorists, traitors, paedophiles and rapists".

Omar reacted, saying that "violent rhetoric" leads to "violent threats."

"This is the natural result of a political environment where anti-Muslim dog whistles and dehumanization are normalized by an entire political party and its media outlets," Omar said.

Twitter has come under attack for not taking action against world leaders including Trump for tweets that often violate its rules.

The company announced this year that it would not always remove tweets from world leaders which break its rules, but are in the "public interest".

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News Network
January 8,2020

Sydney, Jan 8:  Authorities in Australia will begin five-day campaign to kill thousands of camels in the country as they drink too much water amid the wildfires.  The government will send helicopters to kill up to 10,000 camels in a five-day campaign starting Wednesday, The Hill reported citing The Australian.

Marita Baker, an Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) (large, sparsely-populated local government area for Aboriginal Australians) executive board member, said that the camels were causing problems in her community of Kanypi.

"We have been stuck in stinking hot and uncomfortable conditions, feeling unwell, because the camels are coming in and knocking down fences, getting in around the houses and trying to get to water through air conditioners,'' she said.

The planned killing of the camels comes at a time the country is ravaged by wildfires since November. The disaster has killed more than a dozen people and caused the displacement or deaths of 480 million animals, according to University of Sydney researchers.

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News Network
February 6,2020

Beijing, Feb 6: The number of confirmed fatalities from China's coronavirus outbreak rose to at least 560, after authorities in hardest-hit Hubei province reported 70 new deaths on February 6.

In its daily update, the health commission in Hubei also confirmed the number of confirmed infections in the outbreak has reached 28,018 nationwide with 3,694 new cases reported.

The epidemic, which has spiralled into a global health emergency, is believed to have emerged in December from a market that sold wild game in Hubei's capital Wuhan.

Hu Lishan, an official in Wuhan, warned Wednesday that despite building a hospital from scratch and converting public buildings to accommodate thousands of extra patients, there was still a "severe" lack of beds in the region.

There was also a shortage of "equipment and materials," he told reporters, adding that officials were looking to convert other hotels and schools in the city into treatment centres.

Authorities in several other cities in China have placed restrictions on the number of people allowed to leave their homes.

Global concerns have also risen about the virus, with cases confirmed in more than 20 countries.

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Agencies
July 18,2020

Days after Twitter accounts of several billionaires were hacked to engineer a crypto scam, Twitter on Saturday said it is embarrassed, disappointed and, more than anything, sorry for what happened with some of its high-profile users as attackers successfully manipulated its employees and used their credentials to access internal systems, including getting through the two-factor protections.

In the first detailed summary of the "social engineering attack" via a crypto scam that hit at least 130 users this week, Twitter said for 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account and send Tweets.

"We are continuing our forensic review of all of the accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the usernames," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.

For up to eight of the Twitter accounts involved, the attackers took the additional step of downloading the account's information via "Your Twitter Data" tool.

This is a tool that is meant to provide an account owner with a summary of their Twitter account details and activity.

"We are reaching out directly to any account owner where we know this to be true. None of the eight were verified accounts," said Twitter.

The company said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack.

"Attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of our internal support tools," informed Twitter.

In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information, Twitter added, saying its forensic investigation of these activities was still ongoing.

"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted".

The company said it will soon restore access for all account owners who may still be locked out as a result of the remediation efforts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Twitter crypto scam can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGusers.com, a username-swapping community where people buy and sell coveted online handles.

The report said that the Twitter hack is not from Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers but was done by a group of young people, "one of whom says he lives at home with his mother".

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