Joe Lieberman wants Islamist extremist accounts banned on Twitter.

Aides for Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the move was part of a wider attempt to eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the internet ... Twitter is reported to be rejecting the move after pointing out that unlike al-Qaeda, the Taliban movement is not registered by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organisation.

Lieberman seems not be targeting terrorists who plan attacks using the service, but rather Taliban propagandists famous for political hysterics, gloating, and bickering with NATO counterparts. It makes no sense at all except as censorious weight-pulling for its own sake.

The ranty impulse is to suggest that he's got that Clash of Civilizations thing going on, or that he doesn't trust you with the liberty to hear what Helmand Harry has to say. If anything, however Lieberman seems smaller than that. It's as if he's simply embarrassed to see the enemy free to speak, and banning them from Twitter is his best idea to silence them.

Previously: Egypt turns off internet, Lieberman wants same option for US Read the rest