Twitter Shuts Down 1.2 Million Accounts for Promoting Terrorism

Over a stretch of two years (between August 2015 and the end of 2017 ), Twitter, the popular networking site said on Thursday that it has permanently suspended about 1.2 million accounts from its social media platform for promoting terrorism.

More than 1.2 million Twitter accounts suspended for promoting terror content

Twitter has said that more than 1.2 million accounts were suspended for content related to terrorist activities on the microblogging site since August 2015. https://t.co/tVZbvlJPdo pic.twitter.com/6f0JJBHtwq

— SOCIAL MEDIA (@markets2015) April 6, 2018

The number of suspended accounts includes 274,460 accounts that were suspended in the second half of 2017 (June – December). According to its 12th biannual transparency report, it says that the figure is 8.4% down from the previous reporting period and is the second consecutive reporting period in which there has been such reduction.

Of those 274,460 accounts suspended in the last reporting period, 93% were flagged by internal, proprietary tools, and 74% of those accounts were suspended before their first Tweet.

Over the years, there has been a lot of accusations against tech giants of knowingly supporting terrorist groups. But with this development,  it is good to know that Twitter is finding and removing these accounts in such vast quantities and doing its bit to curb terrorism on the Internet.

Twitter claims more progress on squeezing terrorist content Twitter has put out its latest Transparency Report providing an update on how many terrorist accounts it has suspended on its platform — with a cumulative 1.2 million+ susp… https://t.co/qRj1dxF84Z via @bdnews24 #news

— Bangladesh News 24 (@bdnews24) April 5, 2018

Although the number of accounts flagged as terrorism-related on the social networking platform is quite alarming, but it is nice that Twitter is doing something about it.

The company wrote in a blog post:

We continue to see the positive, significant impact of years of hard work making our site an undesirable place for those seeking to promote terrorism, resulting in this type of activity increasingly shifting away from Twitter.

It also used the post to express it concerns on the “legal threats to freedom of expression” online in countries around the world. It says:

With the passage of the latest laws and ongoing regulatory discussions happening around the globe about the way forward for public discourse on-line, we’re seeing a possible chilling impact close to freedom of expression.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Twitter reported 330 million average monthly users on its platform overall.