Social networking site Diaspora has said that it is unable to stop Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants from posting graphic images, simply because it has no control over what is posted to the site.
Diaspora was set up in a way that specifically avoids a centralized network administrator. Rather than using its own network, Diaspora uses thousands of private servers, which cannot be shut down or controlled.
"Diaspora is a completely decentralized network which, by its nature, consists of many small servers exchanging posts and messages," said the company in a blog post. "There is no central server, and there is therefore no way for the project's core team to manipulate or remove contents from a particular node in the network (which we call a "pod"). This may be one of the reasons which attracted IS activists to our network."
This news comes shortly after ISIS' Twitter accounts were blocked and images removed. The scope of accounts being deactivated has been widened to include any member who posts graphic images related to the video of the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley.
ISIS had been perfecting the use of social media to get its message out, even hacking messages about the World Cup to broaden its reach. Because Twitter has clamped down on the organization, it now has to turn to other social networking sites.
Many other Internet sites have also blocked or censored content from the extremist group.
Despite not being able to control the content that is uploaded, Diaspora said that it was contacting the administrators of the pods, called podmins, to alert them of the problems that come with hosting extremist content, including the possibility that it could be illegal.
While removing some content related to ISIS will be possible, it is likely that Diaspora will not be able to remove all of it.
"Because this is such a crucial issue, we have also accumulated a list of accounts related to IS fighters, which are spread over a large number of pods, and we are in the process of talking to the podmins of those pods," continued the company.
Despite this, according to Diaspora, the real challenge comes with contacting owners of the small pods.
Throughout the investigations, Diaspora has continued to say that some of its core weaknesses are also its core strengths and that it is proud that it can host discussions and networks that other social media sites cannot. Four New York-based students originally founded Diaspora in 2010 through a crowdfunding campaign.
