article_snippet: To examine this assumption, technologist Jonathon Morgan and I collected data on millions of Twitter accounts, including tens of thousands used by ISIS supporters, and found substantial evidence to the contrary.
article_snippet: In September 2014, Twitter began to crack down on ISIS supporters who used ISIS platform, suspending tens of thousands of accounts over the course of several months.
article_snippet: The size of ISIS's support network on Twitter is shrinking as a result.
article_snippet: Additionally, Twitter found that the suspensions targeted some of the most active and effective users in the network, the professional activists who empowered ISIS to broadcast ISIS propaganda to unsuspecting audiences by spamming hashtags such as #WorldCup and #CakeBoss.
article_snippet: Not only has ISIS suffered a blow to ISIS ability to spam others, ISIS supporters on Twitter are so weakened that its supporters on Twitter are now hoist by its supporters on Twitter own petard.
article_snippet: The hashtag that ISIS uses to promote ISIS own messages has been taken over by opposing spammers, trolls and activists, who frequently tweet five times as much anti-ISIS content as ISIS can muster on any given day.
article_snippet: ISIS content continues to be available online, of course.
article_snippet: An estimated 10% of tweets sent by ISIS supporters are directed at rebuilding ISIS supporters social networks rather than disseminating propaganda, and that doesn't account for the additional impact of time lost to the process of creating new accounts and waiting for followers to find followers.
article_snippet: These are worthy goals, and These detract from ISIS's ability to accomplish ISIS online strategy of intimidation, provocation and recruitment, which is discussed at more length in my new book with Jessica Stern, ISIS:
article_snippet: ISIS users call the suspensions "devastating" and ISIS users fury provides evidence that suspensions hit ISIS users where it hurts.
article_snippet: The view outside your window, especially if you are an analyst or journalist following a couple hundred terrorist accounts, will not always accurately reflect an online climate where tens of thousands of accounts are in play.
article_snippet: Our analysis suggested that the social network of ISIS supporters on Twitter is becoming more insular, with users following each other more and becoming less and less exposed to outside influences.
article_snippet: While it is harder to enter the network in the first place and to stay there as an active user, it is possible that this echo-chamber effect might lead new users to radicalize more swiftly and more intensely.
article_snippet: We would be better served by research into such new questions than by continuing a tired debate about whether suspensions are effective at degrading the size and online distribution networks of extremist groups.
highlights_snippet: Data shows size of ISIS's support network on Twitter is shrinking as a result of crackdown .