Twitter suspended 377,000 accounts last year for trying to promote extremism

Twitter has said that it has suspended around 377,000 accounts during the final six months of 2016 for "violationrelated to promotion of terrorism".

The revelation came as part of its semi-annual "transparency report".

The report also said that the maximum number of requests to takedown posts came from Turkey.

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It said that it wanted to "shine a bright light" on the requests as a threat to press freedom.

The micro-blogging website said that during the last six-months of 2016, it received 88 court orders and legal requests from around the world asking it to remove content posted by verified journalits. The highest number of such requests came form Turkey.

Twitter said that it had also stepped up efforts to rid the social networking website of content advocating political and religious violence. It is taking help from a softwareto spot such tweets instead of relying on government requests.

The revelations assume importance in light of increased pressure on social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and Google to fight online radicalisation by Islamist groups like Islamic State.

(WION with inputs from Reuters)