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In America, a GIF Can Get You Arrested

A man from Ohio has been charged for soliciting the murder of U.S. military personnel with a GIF.
Image: GongTo/Shutterstock

The US government continues to fight online ISIS propaganda by arresting supporters of the terrorist group who spread its message on social media, be it with tweets or Facebook messages, or even GIFs.

A 25-year-old ISIS fanboy from Akron, Ohio was arrested on Thursday for allegedly inciting the murder of US servicemen on social media—specifically with a GIF displaying several photographs and names of members of the military. Terrence J. McNeil is accused of reblogging the GIF on his Tumblr on September 24 of this year, according to the criminal complaint against him.

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The GIF contained information released by the Islamic State Hacking Division, a hacking group controlled by Junaid Hussain, a British hacker who was killed by a US drone strike in August of this year. Earlier this year, Hussain claimed to have hacked Pentagon server and posted the personal information of 100 US military members, including names, addresses, and pictures, calling for ISIS to conduct lone wolf attacks against them.

McNeil allegedly posted the GIF on his pseudonymous Tumblr, which is still online. The account is filled with posts in support of ISIS, as well as Simpsons memes and animal pictures.

The criminal complaint also details a seemingly endless list of Twitter accounts—with handles such as "Lone_Wolfe13"—where McNeil allegedly stated his explicit support for ISIS and tweeted at other ISIS supporters messages like "just thinking about getting martyred puts a smile on my face."

Authorities stressed that what McNeil did could not be seen as just exercising his right to free speech.

"While we aggressively defend First Amendment rights, the individual arrested went far beyond free speech by reposting names and addresses of 100 US service members, all with the intent to have them killed," Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony of the FBI's Cleveland Division said in a statement.

"There's sometimes a very fine line between speech and conduct."

Jeremy Mishkin, a lawyer specialized in First Amendment issues, agreed with the FBI's take.

"There's sometimes a very fine line between speech and conduct. The express call for killings plus specific information about potential victims could justify law enforcement's decision to treat this as a 'true threat' and thus a crime," he told Motherboard in an email.

Mishkin referred to a similar case in 1997, where an anti-abortionist group created a website called "The Nuremberg Files," equating physicians who performed abortions to Nazis. The site also displayed the personal information of the doctors, including their names, addresses, names of family members and photos. A Court of Appeals found that the website constituted a "true threat" and was not protected by the First Amendment.

McNeil's case is just the latest in a series of arrests made based on social media posts. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old from Virginia was sentenced to 11 years for running a popular pro-ISIS Twitter account called @Amreekiwitness, spreading ISIS propaganda and teaching others how to send the group Bitcoins. A resident of Queens, New York, was arrested in September, and the FBI referred to his retweets as one indication of his support for ISIS.