Over 46,000 Twitter accounts linked to Islamic State
An American study reports that at least 46,000 Twitter were linked to the jihadist organization Islamic State at the end of 2014. "We estimate that from September to December 2014, IS supporters used at least 46,000 accounts, although not all of them were active at the same time," emphasizes the report, which was carried out by the Brookings Institution with funding from Google Ideas.
According to an analysis of the geographical data of the messages, most of the users reside in areas under IS control in Syria and Iraq, but many are also in Saudi Arabia. Three-quarters of the accounts were in Arabic, a fifth in English and 6% in French.
Accounts supporting ISIS have an average of 1,000 “followers” each, a larger number than regular accounts. Much of ISIS’s success on the social networking site may be due to “a relatively small group of hyperactive users,” the report added.
During the last quarter of 2014, at least 1,000 accounts were disabled by Twitter, but the actual number may be significantly higher.
The authors of the report call on Twitter not to impose heavy measures, despite the pressure it is receiving from some governments, as they believe that this would "isolate" ISIS supporters on Twitter and force them to adopt a different stance that would favor their radicalization.
Source: koutipandoras.gr
