Here’s the thing: no one is safe. My colleagues and I have received death threats for years. Political and cultural elites think that if they marginalize the truth tellers and “trim” the truth to “acceptable” levels of discourse, then they will be safe. But as they are quickly finding, that is not the case.
The truth ought to be heralded, not extinguished.
These death threats are the same as we face, as Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Malala face — anyone who blasphemes against Islam is targeted for sharia punishment. You cannot criticize or offend Islam.
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo received Isis death threats: ‘That’s a jarring thing for anyone to deal with’
The American businessman and staff have been targeted by the militant group
Friday 10 October 20145
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and his staff have received death threats from Isis, he has claimed.
The Jihadist militant group (also known as Islamic State) was using the social media channel to share its news, so their accounts were shut down.
“After we started suspending their accounts, some folks affiliated with the organisation used Twitter to declare that employees of Twitter and their management should be assassinated,” said Costolo.
“Obviously that’s a jarring thing for anyone to deal with and I’ve spent a long time talking to the company about it.”
Talking at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, Costolo discussed the difficulties in balancing freedom of speech with the spreading of negative, malevolent content.
“Whenever you have a global public information-sharing channel, you are going to have people that use it for good,” said Costolo. “It’s obviously been a tool for social change, beneficial social change in a number of countries around the world.
