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Twitter shuts 235,000 extremist accounts in six months

Social media franchise Twitter has said it has closed 235,000 accounts over the last year, for violating its policies regarding the promotion of terrorism. The news comes after the platform previously faced criticism over the level of extremist content that had been detected on its network. In a blog post, the firm said: “Daily suspensions are up over 80 per cent since last year, with spikes in suspensions immediately following terrorist attacks. We have expanded the teams that review reports around the clock, along with their tools and language capabilities. "We also collaborate with other social platforms, sharing information and best practices for identifying terrorist content." Nonetheless, Nikita Malik, a senior researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremist group, said that the action taken by Twitter would only act as a short term solution. Malik argued that a better approach would involve promoting counter narratives that challenged the message of extremist propaganda. Malik said: “What we're trying to do as an organisation when we work with social media companies like Google and Twitter is to help them have a more pro-active role.”

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