Twitter has been cracking down on terrorism on its platform, but a new study has revealed that Nazi sympathizers and white nationalists are being left to run rampant on the social media platform.
Last month, Twitter announced that it has suspended an additional 235,000 accounts linked to terrorism, mainly connected with ISIS, over the previous six months as part of its campaign to purge the platform from terrorism-related content. In addition to the 125,000 accounts that were shut down since the middle of last year, Twitter has removed about 360,000 accounts as part of the initiative.
While Twitter has painted a target on terrorism-related content, a new study has revealed that accounts of white nationalists and Nazi sympathizers from mostly within the United States are operating with "relative impunity," and usually have more followers compared with the accounts of militant Islamists.
The study, which was written by the Program on Extremism by George Washington University, took a look at 18 prominent white nationalist Twitter accounts, including the American Nazi Party. Research shows that there has been a significant increase in followers from a total of 3,500 in 2012 to over 25,000.
While the number does not seem like a big one, it should be noted that the study only took a look at a handful of such accounts. Nevertheless, it shows that while Twitter is rightfully cracking down on terrorism-related content, accounts related to these ideologies have been largely left unchecked.
"White nationalists and Nazis outperformed ISIS in average friend and follower counts by a substantial margin," the study stated, adding that the accounts of Nazi sympathizers have a median count of followers that was almost eight times more than those of ISIS supporters, along with a mean count that is over 22 times higher.
When asked about the report, a spokesman for Twitter referred to the terms of service of the social media platform, which is a puzzling move. The terms of service prohibits not only terrorism on Twitter, but also threatening abuse and hateful conduct that includes attacking other users based on their ethnicity or race, which has been largely associated with the concepts supported by Nazi sympathizers and white nationalists.
Why then is Twitter not also cracking down on these accounts? According to study author J. M. Berger, there remains a distinct problem in the social media platform that has made it slow to react to the issue. While some of the accounts are in clear violation of the terms of service, some accounts are operating within a gray area, and others are offensive but do not violate any regulations.
