Twitter decided to suspend over 58 million user accounts and that is just the beginning. In light of the alleged Russian meddling during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, the suspension highlights Twitter’s new forceful initiative to reduce and remove malicious and suspicious accounts, according to data from The Associated Press.
The rate of account suspensions has doubled since October 2017 according to a report by the Washington Post . Twitter confirmed the suspension of over 70 million accounts in May and June, close to one million accounts a day.
According to a blog post by Twitter, the system is challenging over 9.9 million potential spam or automated accounts a week. This number is a significant rise from 6.4 million accounts in December and 3.2 million in September 2017 which were suspended, the numbers are continuing to grow at a rapid rate. Many stockholders are wondering if these numbers will affect real Twitter users, however, Twitter is focused on maintaining safety.
Twitter’s Vice President said the company recently adapted and is able to dedicate resources to changing the way in which they balance freedom and personal safety.
“One of the biggest shifts is in how we think about balancing free expression versus the potential for free expression to chill someone else’s speech,” Harvey said. “Free expression doesn’t really mean much if people don’t feel safe.”
According to the Twitter Help Center, the company remains the right to suspend user’s accounts when they violate Twitter Rules. Often reasons for suspension include spam and fake accounts, these pose security risks for users. Abusive tweets and behaviors will also lead to a users’ account suspension.
The growing campaign against fake accounts, bots and trolls are said to be a continuation from the Oct. 2017 vow Twitter’s CEO made to crack down on hate speech and sexual harassment. As well as a push from Russia’s disinformation offense during the 2016 U.S presidential campaign The changes reflect an internal shift for Twitter which was initially used as a platform for free speech.
Harvey said the shift did not impact the number of active users tremendously because, according to Twitter’s guidelines, many of the malicious accounts were not active. Twitter currently has 336 million active, monthly users.
Senator Mark R. Warner from Virginia, a top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wishes Twitter had taken precautions sooner rather than later.
“I’m glad that, after months of focus on this issue, Twitter appears to be cracking down on the use of bots and other fake accounts,” Warner said. “Though there is still much work to do.”
