Twitter suspends hundreds of thousands of accounts for promoting terrorism

Twitter has suspended an additional 235,000 accounts since February for violating policies related to violent threats and promotion of terrorism, the company said on Thursday.

That brings the total to 360,000 suspensions since the middle of 2015, with daily suspensions up 80 percent since last year, Twitter said, thanks in part to propriety "spam-fighting" tools.

The company said it has made progress reducing the amount of time that violators are on Twitter, reducing their followers, and disrupting the ability of offenders to immediately return to Twitter. It said it has bolstered its team to review complaints of extremism, as well as buoyed collaborations with law enforcement, other social platforms and international non-governmental agencies.

The news comes after Twitter made headlines for its free-speech policies, after reporting from BuzzFeed News said it failed to block harassment for non-celebrity users. Former Twitter CEO Dick Costololater implied the report was "laughably false," while Twitter said it would continue to make the platform a "safer place."

This story is developing. Please check back for further updates.

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