There is no "magic algorithm" for identifying terrorist-related content on the web, says Twitter. However, the microblogging platform has suspended 360,000 accounts related to the promotion of terrorism since mid-2015. It says daily suspensions are up by over 80 per cent in the last year, noting the spikes in suspensions directly following a terrorist attack.

In a recent blogpost, Twitter pointed out that it has been using proprietary spam-fighting tools and working with other social networks to share information and best practices for finding and eliminating this kind of content.

Harassing content

Meanwhile some Twitter users have expressed anger over the speed with which the social network has been pulling down copyrighted material related to Rio 2016, while tweets containing harassing content are taking longer to be dealt with and are, in some cases, deemed okay to remain on the site. Twitter’s policy is: “any material that is reported to us is reviewed by our dedicated team and our policies are enforced where appropriate”.

blog.twitter.com/2016/an-update-on-our-efforts-to-combat-violent-extremism