by Peter Hasson
Twitter took action against more than 285,000 different accounts for “hateful conduct” in the first six months of 2018, according to data the company released Wednesday night.
Twitter dinged more accounts for “hateful conduct” — 285,393 to be exact — than for any other violation of Twitter rules during that time. That amounts to roughly 1,900 accounts per day that Twitter found in violation of its “hateful conduct” rules.
It’s unclear how Twitter’s policing of “hateful conduct” in the first half of 2018 compares to other years, as Wednesday was the first time the company included those numbers in its biannual transparency report.
“We use the term ‘action’ to refer to our range of enforcement actions, which include possible account suspension,” Twitter explained in an accompanying post.
The numbers also show how Twitter’s content monitors are flooded with requests for punitive action.
Just under 2.7 million individual accounts were reported for hateful conduct from Jan. 1 through June 30.
Twitter took action against roughly 11 percent of the reported accounts during that time.
The company also took action against 248,629 accounts for violating Twitter rules prohibiting “abuse” on the platform.
Twitter stepped up its speech policing in the second half of the year, thanks in part to pressure from the company’s own employees, who have pushed for more censorship on the platform.
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Peter Hasson is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson.
