Twitter has suspended hundreds of thousands of terrorist-related user accounts over the past six months in an ongoing effort to eliminate terrorist propaganda online.
Twitter has deleted 235,000 terrorist-related user accounts in the past six months
Twitter is trying to keep bad guys off its service.
Carl Court / Getty Images
The company announced Thursday that it has suspended 235,000 accounts since February that violated Twitter’s “policies related to promotion of terrorism.” That’s almost double the number of accounts it suspended in the six or so months prior.
Social media platforms — Twitter in particular — have become places for terrorist groups like ISIS to both recruit and preach. One of the challenges Twitter faces that competitors like Facebook don’t is that accounts can be anonymous, which means that once an account is taken down its creator can usually turn around and make a new one.
Twitter didn’t provide details on how it was doing it, but said in its blog post, “We have also made progress in disrupting the ability of those suspended to immediately return to the platform.” So there’s that.
Offensive or abusive content on Twitter ranges far beyond terrorist activity and promotion. But Twitter clearly wants people to know it’s trying, and apparently succeeding, in keeping (some) bad guys off its platform.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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