Twitter wants you to know that it is just as horrified as you are about the tweets on its platform promoting terrorism—and that, yes, the company is trying to combat it.
In recent months, Twitter has come under fire as ISIS propagandists used the platform to promote their cause and recruit would-be militants. While Facebook has taken a blunt approach toward removing any and all posts that have even a whiff of terrorism, Twitter has sought to strike a balance between protecting free speech and cracking down on people who use Twitter as a way to promote violence or threats. In some cases, after all, one person's political speech is another's call for terrorism.
The company said in a post today that it continues to work to crack down on violent extremism on its platform. It has suspended more than 125,000 terrorist-related accounts, primarily accounts associated with ISIS, since the middle of last year and has added more people to the teams that review reports of terrorist propaganda in an effort to make speedier decisions about whether to remove it. Twitter says it's used "proprietary spam-fighting tools" to find similar accounts and has worked with the FBI and other organizations.
The impetus behind Twitter's post seems to be a need to let the world know that it's doing something. Politicians like Hillary Clinton have emphasized that the US needs Silicon Valley's help in defeating ISIS as social media tools become crucial to how groups gain support and disseminate information. People complain readily (and rightfully) about Twitter's failure to find a real solution to harassment on its platform. It doesn't want to find itself in the same place when it comes to terrorism.
