360,000 Twitter Accounts Suspended for Having Ties to Terrorists

There is no doubt that a perpetual fear of terrorism is thriving in the United States, as it is around the world. On the front of cybersecurity, social networks like Twitter are taking a giant leap to curtail terrorist activity and communications by suspending 360,000 accounts that have terrorist ties.

While this year"s presidential election cycle has stirred the concern for future terrorist activity in America and around the world, Twitter has responded by purging hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts that they consider to have ties to terrorist or appear to have terrorist activity.

The world as we know it has witnessed horrendous terrorist attacks and Twitter has made it known in recent blog posts that they strongly condemn such acts. Besides, Twitter has made it clear that they remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence and terrorism on their platform. To stand by their word, Twitter"s daily account suspensions are up over 80% in the last year with sharp spikes immediately following terrorist attacks.

"Our response time for suspending reported accounts, the amount of time these accounts are on Twitter, and the number of followers they accumulate have all decreased dramatically," the company said. "As noted by numerous third parties, our efforts continue to drive meaningful results, including a significant shift in this type of activity off of Twitter."

Cybersecurity has always been a battle that yet remains to be won. Terrorism is only a portion of cybersecurity threats that many companies and social network giants attempt to combat on a daily basis but later conclude that the fight will be a long one that they should never concede defeat.

Twitter, making the latest move towards combatting terrorism on the front of the Internet, has suspended about 360,000 accounts since the middle of last year (2015). Among those 360K accounts suspended, about 235,000 of them were suspended for violating policies related to the promotion or terrorism in the last six months. About 125,000 of the accounts were suspended since mid-215 for other terrorist-related reasons.

Among the few social network giants, Twitter has stepped up to the plate to expand their teams to review reports and take immediate action for accounts that have suspicious activity that could be considered to be associated with terrorism. Facebook has also been in the fray to suspend accounts if they were found to be associated with radicalized groups, which covers a variety of suspicious activates, not strictly terrorism.

To keep "peace" on Twitter, the company is taking proactive measures to ensure that those behind suspended accounts don"t have an easy way to return to the network. The collaboration with other social networks and the sharing of information and best practices to identify terrorist activity has enabled Twitter to keep one step ahead of those who wish to terrorize. Moreover, working closely with law enforcement has been the icing on the cake to thwart terrorists forming accounts on Twitter and ultimately suspending any accounts that promote terror or have any ties to terrorists around the world.