Twitter cancels terror accounts
The social media platform said it had suspended 125,000 extremist users.
For years, Twitter has positioned itself as a “global town square” that is open to discourse from all. And for years, extremist groups like the Islamic State have taken advantage of that stance, using Twitter as a place to spread their messages.
Twitter on Friday made clear that it is now stepping up its fifight to stem that tide. The social media company said it had suspended 125,000 Twitter accounts associated with extremism since the middle of 2015, the fifirst time it has openly publicized the exact number of accounts it has suspended. Twitter also said it had expanded the teams that review reports of accounts connected to extremism, to remove the accounts more quickly.
“As the nature of the terrorist threat has changed, so has our ongoing work in this area,” Twitter said in a statement, adding that it “condemns the use of Twitter to promote terrorism.” The company said its collective moves had
already produced results, “including an increase in account suspensions and this type of activity shifting offff Twitter.”
The disclosure follows intensifying pressure on Twitter and other technology companies from the White House, presidential candidates and government agencies to take more action to combat the digital practices of terrorist groups. The scrutiny has grown after mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., last year, because of concerns that radicalizations can be accelerated by extremist postings on the Web and social media.
The number of suspended Twitter accounts related to extremists is a fraction of the total accounts on the service, which has 320 million monthly active users. Still, the 125,000 suspended are signifificantly more than previous studies have suggested.
In its blog post Friday, Twitter said violent threats and the promotion of terrorism had long been against its terms of service. For almost three years, Twitter has worked closely with groups that are trying to counter extremist recruitment tactics through positive messaging, the company said.
Still, some lawmakers and technologists have perceived some of the efffffffffffforts as toothless.
“Twitter has ramped up its response signifificantly since June 2014, and again since the Paris attacks, but ISIS has still maintained a notable presence on the platform,” said J.M. Berger, a fellow with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism and author of books on radical extremist issues.
Twitter acknowledged that the issue remained tricky.
“As an open platform for expression, we have always sought to strike a balance bet ween the enforcement of our own Twitter rules covering prohibited behaviors, the legitimate needs of law enforcement and the ability of users to share their views freely,” the company said. “There is no ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the Internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgment calls based on very limited information and guidance.”