Twitter suspends another 235,000 accounts in efforts to combat terrorism

This brings our overall number of suspensions to 360,000 since the middle of 2015.

Twitter announces steps to counter terrorism. Photo: Reuters

Twitter on Thursday came out with an update regarding their efforts to combat violent extremism through a blog post. The social media site said it has now suspended an additional 235,000 accounts for violating our policies related to promotion of terrorism in the six months since their February 2015 post. This brings our overall number of suspensions to 360,000 since the middle of 2015.

It has earlier suspended more than 125,000 accounts since mid-2015 for violating our longtime prohibition on violent threats and the promotion of terrorism.

Daily suspensions are up over 80% since last year, with spikes in suspensions immediately following terrorist attacks, it added. “Our response time for suspending reported accounts, the amount of time these accounts are on Twitter, and the number of followers they accumulate have all decreased dramatically. We have also made progress in disrupting the ability of those suspended to immediately return to the platform,” said Twitter.

“We strongly condemn these (terrorist) acts and remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform,” it said. “Our response time for suspending reported accounts, the amount of time these accounts are on Twitter, and the number of followers they accumulate have all decreased dramatically. We have also made progress in disrupting the ability of those suspended to immediately return to the platform,” it added.

Twitter also reiterated that there is no one “magic algorithm” for identifying terrorist content on the Internet. But they continue to utilise other forms of technology, like proprietary spam-fighting tools, to supplement reports from our users and help identify repeat account abuse. “In fact, over the past six months these tools have helped us to automatically identify more than one third of the accounts we ultimately suspended for promoting terrorism,” it added.

It finally said that they continue to work with law enforcement entities seeking assistance with investigations to prevent or prosecute terror attacks. Twitter responds to valid legal process issued in compliance with applicable law as explained in their Law Enforcement Guidelines, and that they reported on these government requests (in aggregate) twice a year, in our Transparency Report.

TAGS: