Twitter has announced that it banned 274,460 accounts for promoting terrorism over the last six months of 2017.
The number of bans reported in the twice yearly transparency report marks a 8.4% decrease on the six months previous as part of what Twitter celebrated as “the positive, significant impact of years of hard work”.
As with its report last year, the majority of these accounts (93%) were automatically removed by the social media company’s internal tools, and 74% were suspended before their first tweet.
“Government reports of violations related to the promotion of terrorism represent less than 0.2% of all suspensions in the most recent reporting period,” Twitter claimed – reflecting a 50% reduction in reports compared to the previous six months.

The bans follow immense pressure by governments across the world in response to terrorist attacks, with social media companies being accused of not working hard enough to prevent the spread of online extremism.
Last year, Home Secretary Amber Rudd floated the idea that people who repeatedly viewed terrorist content online could be jailed for up to 15 years.
In the face of this pressure, technology and social media companies have begun investing huge amounts of money to combat extremism.
Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter have announced funding for various projects as they seek to deflect regulatory interest.
In the UK, the Government is introducing its ‘Internet Safety Strategy’ which could see social media companies pay an additional tax to pay for measures to address cyber bulling and extremism.

source: news.sky.com