Facebook, Twitter shut accounts without notice: Hezbollah

Islamist political party and militant group Hezbollah said its Facebook and Twitter accounts have been terminated without any notice.

Hezbollah said on Telegram -- an encrypted messaging app -- that the closures came without warning and were "part of the propaganda campaign against the resistance due to the important role of the organisation's information apparatus in various arenas", The Times of Israel reported on Saturday.

There was no immediate explanation from either Facebook or Twitter on the decision to block the accounts.

According to Ynet news, despite the closures, Internet users were directed to pages associated with Hezbollah.

While the companies have previously blocked pages belonging to the Iran-backed terror group, the shutting down of the accounts came after recent threats by Israeli officials to take legal action against social media companies for hosting the accounts of terror groups, the report said.

Earlier this month, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan sent a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey warning the company could face prosecution in Israel if it does not block accounts belonging to Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Erdan had claimed that unlike other social media companies, Twitter in many cases had declined to remove content posted by terrorist groups.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked had also threatened Twitter with a legal action over the social media giant's alleged refusal to crack down on posts by terror operatives.

The blocking of the Hezbollah accounts come a day after the terror group released new footage on social media from the 2006 border attack on Israeli soldiers that sparked the Second Lebanon War.

--IANS

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