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Twitter Suspends 300,000 Accounts Tied To Terrorism In 2017 (bloomberg.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the ahead-of-the-curve dept.

According to a new transparency report, Twitter said it suspended nearly 300,000 accounts globally linked to terrorism in the first half of the year. The company is improving automation tools used to help block accounts that promote terrorism and violence. Bloomberg reports: Of [the nearly 300,000 accounts that were suspended], roughly 95 percent were identified by the company's spam-fighting automation tools. Meanwhile, the social network said government data requests continued to increase, and that it provided authorities with data on roughly 3,900 accounts from January to June. Twitter said about 75 percent of the blocked accounts this year were spotted before a single tweet was sent, and that 935,897 accounts had been suspended since August 2015, with two-thirds of those coming in the past year. American authorities made 2,111 requests from Twitter from January to June, the most of the 83 countries tracked by the company. Twitter supplied information on users in 77 percent of the inquiries. Japan made 1,384 requests and the U.K. issued 606 requests. Turkish authorities continued a trend of aggressively policing Twitter, making 554 requests for account data and issuing court orders to remove 715 pieces of content. Other governments made only 38 total content-removal requests.

11 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. 300,000 terrorists? by William+Baric · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or is it rather 300,000 accounts from people who were not politically correct?

    1. Re:300,000 terrorists? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ha! Good point. You know that saying:

      One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

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      t's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment
      Fuck You /.

    2. Re:300,000 terrorists? by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      That's a fair point, but when someone is posting videos of burning apostates alive or beheading their enemies, I question what kind of freedom they're fighting for.

    3. Re:300,000 terrorists? by William+Baric · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh, you mean terrorism. And I guess you also mean terrorism.

      See? I can play that game too. So be very careful who you accuse of terrorism, because there's a big chance you are someone who supports a group which some people would happily consider as "terrorist", meaning you are probably a terrorist yourself.

    4. Re:300,000 terrorists? by SciCom+Luke · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In Sweden you can fired for saying that islam might not be the best thing that ever happened to the country. :-(

    5. Re:300,000 terrorists? by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's only terrorism if brown people (especially muslims) do it.

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      sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
    6. Re:300,000 terrorists? by dave420 · · Score: 2

      No, the definition is using terror to further political aims, or more accurately: the use or threat thereof of violence to politically coerce a people. Terrorism isn't an act, it's a motive.

  2. Trump? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Did they suspend Trump?

    Funny: Captcha was "unifies"

  3. Re:US deserves terrorism by BitterOak · · Score: 2

    Many people have a legitimate beef with the US empire, and any terrorism is well deserved to be honest.

    Having a "legitimate beef" with someone doesn't entitle you to commit a terrorist act against them. I have a legitimate beef with people who double park, or cut me off on the highway, but that doesn't entitle me to detonate bombs in their homes, killing their innocent children.

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
  4. Re:US deserves terrorism by Kiuas · · Score: 2

    Aside from that: "Twitter said about 75 percent of the blocked accounts this year were spotted before a single tweet was sent."

    So basically, thought crimes.

    No, basically IP based bans and automated spam filtering.

    I don't use twitter, but they run the platform so they set the rules. If they state you cannot post X, Y or Z and you do and get autobanned for it and the tweet doesn't go through and you're prevented from creating more accounts to try to spam the same message again, that's not a thought crime, that's you not using the service correctly.

    You may freely disagree with some (or even all) of their rules and policies, but that still doesn't change the fact that free speech does not translate to 'third parties must always publish my opinion on their platform.'

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  5. I wonder how many white supremicists by doginthewoods · · Score: 2

    are being allowed to post, seeing as many of them are not classified as "terrorists" even though they bomb, burn, kill, threaten, etc.

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    Republican leadership = Idiocracy