But, since February, it has suspended an additional 235,000 accounts, after halting 125,000 accounts since the middle of 2015, most of which were related to Islamic State.
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The social media platform’s latest move brought the total number of suspended terrorism-related Twitter accounts to 360,000 since previous year, according to a company statement.
“With this latest critical move, Twitter has really set the right tone in the fight against nefarious content on its platform”, said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO. “We strongly condemn these acts and remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform”.
“Daily suspensions are up over 80 percent since a year ago, with spikes in suspensions immediately following terrorist attacks”, Twitter said in a blog post.
The company relies mostly on users’s reports to identify terrorism-related accounts, and it has expanded the size of staff to ensure a 7/24 review of reports, it said.
Besides increased human efforts, Twitter said it had benefited from the use of spam-fighting tools that can help automatically detect problem accounts.
As many experts and other companies have noted, 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.
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“We continue to work with law enforcement entities seeking assistance with investigations to prevent or prosecute terror attacks”, the statement added.
