{"id":187482,"date":"2016-02-06T00:28:07","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T00:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=187482"},"modified":"2016-02-06T00:28:07","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T00:28:07","slug":"twitter-suspends-125000-terrorism-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=187482","title":{"rendered":"Twitter suspends 125,000 &#8216;terrorism&#8217; accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Twitter says it has suspended more than 125,000 accounts since mid-2015 &#8220;for threatening or promoting terrorist acts&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In a blog, the US-based firm said the accounts &#8220;primarily related to ISIS&#8221; (the so-called Islamic State group).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism,&#8221; it said, adding that it had increased its report reviewing teams to react faster.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter has more than 500 million users around the world.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have already seen results, including an increase in account suspensions and this type of activity shifting off of Twitter,&#8221; the company said.<\/p>\n<p>It added that it was co-operating with law enforcement bodies &#8220;when appropriate&#8221; as well as other organisations.<\/p>\n<p>Governments around the world &#8211; including the US &#8211; have been urging social media companies to take more robust measure to tackle online activity aimed at promoting violence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Analysis &#8211; Dave Lee, BBC North America technology reporter in San Francisco<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The negative way of looking at this situation is that Twitter&#8217;s problem with terrorism-related posts is a lot worse than we thought.<\/p>\n<p>A study towards the tail-end of 2014 estimated that around 46,000 accounts had been used to post extremist material, and so in just over a year that number has rocketed.<\/p>\n<p>But of course, the positive way of looking at it is that Twitter is seemingly on top of the issue and taking it seriously. It&#8217;s doing what it can to make sure the public knows this, at a time when many in government are hitting Silicon Valley companies with large doses of &#8220;surely something can be done&#8221; rhetoric.<\/p>\n<p>The big question is what happens next. Terrorists will carry on making more accounts, as well as migrating to other platforms.<\/p>\n<p>And questions will be raised about the removal process. Who decides? Who&#8217;s keeping watch? The definition and perpetrators of terrorism can change depending on your geography and political views.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter will now be asked: why not fascist tweets? Or anti-Israel? Anti-Palestine? Anti-women? Anti-[insert cause here]?<\/p>\n<p>In December, US politicians put forward a bill that would force such companies &#8211; including Twitter and Facebook &#8211; to report any apparent terrorist activity they find.<\/p>\n<p>EU officials have also been calling for talks with major social media firms to discuss the issue.<\/p>\n<p>In March, Facebook revamped its &#8220;community standards&#8221; to include a separate section on &#8220;dangerous organisations&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It said it would ban groups promoting &#8220;terrorist activity, organised criminal activity or promoting hate.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8211;<br \/>\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twitter says it has suspended more than 125,000 accounts since mid-2015 &#8220;for threatening or promoting terrorist acts&#8221;. In a blog, the US-based firm said the accounts &#8220;primarily related to ISIS&#8221; (the so-called Islamic State group). &#8220;We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism,&#8221; it said, adding that it had increased its report reviewing teams [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,106,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-technology","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}