Twitter has suspended 360,000 accounts promoting terrorism over the last year
Twitter has taken its commitment to combatting violent extremism to new heights.
The microblogging site has suspended 235,000 accounts for violating its terms prohibiting violent threats and promoting terrorism over the last six months, Twitter announced Thursday via a blog post.
In February 2016, Twitter revealed it had suspended 125,000 accounts since the middle of 2015. That means in the last year Twitter has suspended 360,000 accounts.
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"Since that announcement, the world has witnessed a further wave of deadly, abhorrent terror attacks across the globe. We strongly condemn these acts and remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform," Twitter wrote in the blog post.
Twitter is one of several online networks that ISIS and other terrorist groups have used to distribute propaganda and to recruit new members.
Daily suspension of violating accounts is up by more than 80 percent since last year.
The uptick follows in Twitter's increased efforts to address terrorism on the network. Twitter has bolstered the team in charge of the task by adding more people to review reports and empowering them with more detection tools, according to the blog post.
Instead of solely relying on reports from users, Twitter's policy team is using more spam-fighting technologies. Over the last six months, those tools have identified more than a third of the 235,000 accounts that were suspended.
Instead of solely relying on reports from users, Twitter's policy team is using more spam-fighting technologies.
The new tools are also helping limit the ability of suspended users to rejoin the site.
While Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has emphasized his network's commitment to free speech, the company's terms do forbid violent threats. A section on promoting terrorism was added in April 2015.
The update comes amid criticism on its inability to address abuse on the network. An investigation from BuzzFeed alleged that the company's leadership resisted changes that could have limited harassment.
Twitter said in a statement, "There is a lot of work to do but please know we are committed, focused, and will have updates to share soon."
Twitter's effort to combat terrorism is also far from over. "We will continue to invest in both technology and other resources in the future and you can expect us to update our progress regularly as part of our Transparency Report beginning in 2017," the blog post reads.
Topics Social Media X/Twitter
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
