A study of ISIS supporter activity on Twitter suggests the tactic of repeat account suspensions can take a toll on the spread of extremist propaganda on the platform.
Tackling terrorist appropriation of mainstream social media platforms has become a growing problem for the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube in recent years as extremist groups have adopted Western technology tools to spread their messages — cranking up the political pressure for tech companies to find solutions to counter the extremist propaganda that is being spread on their platforms.
The research paper, produced by a fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, looked specifically at Twitter and how repeat account suspensions of a list of English-speaking ISIS adherents played out and affected their output and follower counts over time.
The study showed the overall size of the ISIS network remaining roughly the same over the study period, as suspended individuals respawned their accounts, but it found that the reach of individual accounts was diminished as repeat suspensions took a toll.
The researchers based their study on only one list of English tweeting pro-ISIS accounts maintained by a specific user (self labeled as ‘Baqiya Shoutout’), looking at social media activity between June and October last year. So there are plenty of caveats on the scope of the data, as the researchers themselves note.
But the implication — that systematic account suspensions can reduce the volume of extremist propaganda — is heartening nonetheless, offering a counterweight to the argument that fighting extremist propaganda on mainstream platforms via account suspensions is futile because new accounts can just be recreated (i.e. it’s not so futile if you are diminishing your target’s vocal chords).
Among their findings the researchers note that —
Discussing four individual users they examined in detail, the researchers write:

They also found that pro-ISIS Twitter users deployed a range of countermeasures in response to repeat suspensions, such as using tools to automatically recreate followers lists to quickly get up and running again, or using a system of account donation — whereby ISIS supporters create Twitter accounts in bulk and then donate accounts to other supporters on request.
The study also flags up the tactic of extremist tweeters switching to alternative platforms — including secure messaging app Telegram — although the researchers assert that, at present, other platforms are used “primarily as backups for Twitter”.
That said, they note Telegram emerging as a “favored alternative” to Twitter for ISIS supporters, saying this was due in part to the launch last September of Telegram’s Channels feature — which lets users broadcast messages to an unlimited number of followers.
They write:
Telegram’s own counter move to ISIS supporters making use of its Channels features was to block a swathe of pro-ISIS accounts from using its public channels. It also said it would be taking steps to make it easier for users to report “objectionable public content”.
In response to those blocks, the researchers note that ISIS supporters created new, public Telegram channels in conjunction with chat groups  and supergroups — which, unlike the public broadcast Channels, require users to join the chat groups to view the content. Chat groups are limited to 200 members, while supergroups can have up to 1,000 members.
But such groups, while large, do not offer the same unlimited propaganda potential of Twitter which offers extremists the promise of reaching and recruiting from outside their existing pool of supporters. And which, evidently, keeps them trying to come back to Twitter.
You can read the full research paper here.
Twitter declined to comment on the study but in recent times it has been stepping up its efforts to combat the spread of hate speech on its platform. And in a blog post earlier this month specifically on combating extremism it flagged up its “ongoing work in this area”, writing:
