Twitter suspends over 125,000 accounts for 'promoting terrorist acts'

Twitter has shut down more than 125,000 terrorism-related accounts since the middle of 2015, the company said, most of them linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Twitter has said it only takes down accounts when they are reported by other users, but said that it has increased the size of teams monitoring and responding to reports and has decreased its response time "significantly."

When accounts are reported, Twitter said it looks at ones that are similar and uses spam-fighting tools to identify other violent accounts, which it said has resulted in more suspensions. The announcement was especially notable because Twitter has said little about its efforts to combat ISIS and other terror-related content even though it has been criticized for not doing enough to stop those groups from using the service. ISIS has heavily relied on the 300 million-person site, as well as others, to recruit fighters and propagate violent messages and videos.