Twitter CEO Reveals ISIS Has Threatened to Kill Him, Also Employees

ISIS has threatened to take the life of the CEO of the social media platform it has been so been actively using in its pursuit to spread its jihadist campaigns. Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, told Vanity Fair that the blood-hungry group has threatened to kill him as well as his employees after they had closed some of the accounts the Islamic State that opened on the platform.

"After we started suspending their accounts, some folks affiliated with the organization used Twitter to declare that employees of Twitter and their management should be assassinated," Costolo said. "Obviously that's a jarring thing for anyone to deal with."

Costolo also said that it's been fairly challenging trying to maintain the equilibrium of the platform as an instrument of free and open speech versus the security concerns now hounding global governments. That ISIS singled out Twitter for its jihadist campaigns meant the group believed the portal as "a tool for social change, beneficial social change in a number of countries around the world."

But reality will always present two sides of a coin, and Costolo knows there will be people who will use the site for good and bad intents. "It's against our terms of service," he said. "It's against the law in many of the countries in which we operate for them to use it to promote their organization. And when we do find those accounts we shut them down. We shut them down quite actively."

Costolo's revelation confirmed reports that circulated in September of a Twitter handle calling for "lone wolf" attacks against Twitter employees in the U.S. and Europe. The handle was identified as @dawlamoon.

@dawlamoon made a series of tweets specifically geared against Twitter and its employees. "#The_Concept_of_Lone_Wolf_Attacks The time has arrived to respond to Twitter's management by directly attacking their employees and physically assassinating them!! Those who will carry this out are the sleepers cells of death."

"#The_Concept_of_Lone_Wolf_Attacks Twitter management should know that if they do not stop their campaign in the virtual world, we will the bring the war to them in the real world on the ground."

@dawlamoon singled out Twitter employees based in San Francisco, warning them to always watch out. "On his doorstep there might be a lone wolf assassin waiting."

Apart from beheading hostages in Syria, "#Attacking_Twitter_Employees is on the agenda of mujahedeen and lone wolves who are across Europe."