14 DAY TRIAL // Don't say that Twitter does nothing to protect its platform from extremism. Since August 2015, the company has suspended a total of 636,248 accounts promoting terrorism.
In fact, in the last six months of 2016, Twitter suspended nearly 377,000 accounts they deemed to be promoting terrorism, nearly three-quarters of these numbers being caught by the company's own tools and not user reports, Twitter's Transparency Report shows.
Government terms of service requests for the July 1 - December 31, 2016 period to represent less than 2% of all suspensions for that time interval. The company received 716 reports in regard to 5,929 accounts. Action was taken against 85% of them.
Unfortunately, over the years, Twitter has become somewhat of a favorite for extremist organizations and terrorists, whether it was to promote nationalism, separatism, racism, or just pure hate.
The company has been working with groups such as People Against Violent Extremism to find ways to put a stop to terrorists using the platform as a way to spread their vile.
Its rules state that you may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism, so if there's anyone complaining about their accounts being suspended on these accounts, they've got no grounds.
Free speech has limits
Twitter has prided itself on being a platform where free speech was the norm and people were protected. In recent years, however, as viler and viler content has reached the platform, more rules have been implemented to make sure Twitter continues to be a safe platform. Of course, enforcing these rules is another matter altogether, and there are plenty more accounts promoting terrorism that are still active.
The problem with this type of accounts is that you close one down and two more appear in its place. While the number of accounts shut down may seem extremely large, the number of individuals behind them is far smaller.