Hacker News Reader

Comment by 88e282102ae2e5b | Hacker News Reader

So let's ask the question: why did they announce this to the press? That sounds like a whole series of classified things.

It sounds more likely to me that the US wants to weaken ISIS' influence on social media, and by planting the idea that posting pictures results in buildings exploding, they'll be less willing to show off images of anything interesting.

View on HN

Perhaps they already knew about the location, but were looking for some appropriate cover to protect an asset. Further, the US military may wish to make ISIS fearful of using social media, which has been a powerful tool for them.

Alternatively, the guy in charge of releasing things to the press gains points for doing this, and the guy who loses points by having it released to the press is someone else who didn't have control over it. As with all organisations, there is politics and point-scoring and competing agendas and just plain incompetence.

Well I guess that ISIS selfie guy won't get that promotion after all ...

It also hurts their credibility by portraying them as a bunch of amateurs who a superior force (the US) can destroy with ease.

It depends on how stupid the selfie guy was. He could've accidentally left his GPS coordinates in the EXIF data of the image (many phones do this by default). Not much classified sleuthing required to track that down.

You are correct in your analysis. ISIS's main recruitment source is the social media. So, if the US defense can get ISIS to use less social media, it is a net win.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com