Over the months, I’ve written several blogs about the tech industry’s war against terrorism and extremism. Many social media corporations are in this fight. Few fight harder than Twitter. Twitter continues war on terrorism.
Twitter suspended 235,000 accounts believed to promote terrorism and/or extremist causes. This accounts were suspended over a six month period. Twitter began their anti-terrorism campaign in summer 2015. Since then, over 360,000 Twitter accounts were suspended. A Twitter spokesperson issued this statement: “We…remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform.” Twitter has a strict anti-terrorism policy and it’s enforced with authority. Suspensions have gone up 80% since last year. That’s because Twitter has cracked down over such extreme speech and promotion of violence and terror. As Twitter grows it’s teams of reporting extreme tweets, reports are dealt with quicker. They also work with other social media businesses and activist groups to fight online terrorism and extremism. This is a tremendous step in fighting this good step. But some activists say more needs to be done.
Some activists worry online terrorists can get to potential victims in other ways. For instance, they could publish personal information, like emails, phone numbers, addresses, credit/debit card numbers, and anything they wish to. They could use this information to fleece people’s finances, or worse, hunt people down and do the unthinkable. Some wonder how this could interfere with free speech. I’m a huge advocate for free speech and First Amendment rights. Twitter does a good job of keeping people safe without compromising people’s freedoms. I’m a advocate for personal responsibility. If thugs use Twitter to promote murder, bombings, or destruction, then they don’t need to be on Twitter. If someone makes such threats in the real world, they can be arrested and prosecuted for those threats. Same thing on social media. I love Jimmy Kimmel’s Mean Tweet segments. I’m not about political correctness or sensitivity at all. But look at all the terrorist attacks we’ve had in July 2016 and August 2016 alone. Why give these thugs a free platform? Do you think Twitter’s anti-terrorism rules compromise free speech?