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Anonymous says it's already helped shut down thousands of pro-ISIS Twitter accounts

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Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

Just days after declaring "war" on ISIS over the weekend, the international activist group Anonymous announced Tuesday that it's helped Twitter shut down over 5,000 pro-ISIS accounts.

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Anonymous is also encouraging people to search Twitter's database and report anyone supporting the extremist militant group via the group's new website called "#opIceISIS." (Note: The site is now password protected, though it was available to the public early Tuesday.)

"No IS member shall rest," Anonymous said on its new website, referring to the Islamic State.

On Monday evening, Anonymous said it had collected lists of Twitter accounts and websites belonging to ISIS and claimed to have already taken down some of those sites. It's even leaked alleged personal information about suspected ISIS members, posting their names and physical addresses online.

Anonymous says it was able to report the accounts to Twitter, which then suspended them. We've reached out to Twitter for verification and will update if we hear back.

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Anonymous has been shutting down websites and social media accounts linked to ISIS since January, when the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked by terrorists. Around that time, Anonymous claimed to have taken down nearly 800 Twitter accounts and 50 email addresses associated with ISIS — but this latest effort seems to have been much more successful, judging by the numbers of suspended pro-ISIS Twitter accounts.

For those unfamiliar with the group's history, Anonymous operates almost exclusively online and does most of its "activism" through hacking and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which basically cripple servers by sending tons of bogus requests. Anonymous resorts to all sorts of tactics to disrupt communications — even prank phone calls.

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