Study points to growth of white nationalist groups on Twitter

The number of white nationalists and self-identified Nazi sympathisers on Twitter had multiplied over 600 per cent in the last four years, leaving behind Islamic State (Isis) in everything from follower counts to number of daily tweets, according to a new study found.

Researchers from the George Washington University's (GWU) Programme on Extremism focused on 18 accounts of major white nationalist groups and organisations including the American Nazi Party and the National Socialist Movement, mostly US-based.

The accounts had seen a steep rise in followers, from about 3,500 in 2012 to 22,000 in 2016.

According to the study, while Isis stood out for its outreach and recruitment using Twitter, white nationalist groups have excelled in the medium.

According to commentators, the report underlined the falling Isis influence on the social media platform as Twitter pushed ahead with its crackdown on the Islamist militant group.

Last month, Twitter said that it had shut down roughly 360,000 accounts for promoting terrorism.

However, the GWU study pointed out that nationalists were using the site with ''relative impunity''.

''On Twitter, ISIS's preferred social platform, American white nationalist movements have seen their followers grow by more than 600 per cent since 2012,'' the study, authored by J M Berger, research consultant on extremism and a fellow at GWU's Programme on Extremism.

''Today, they outperform ISIS in nearly every social metric, from follower counts to tweets per day.''

The report said users were reporting Islamic extremist content more frequently than white nationalist activity, and the social network was spending more effort quashing the former.

In the data collection period between April and August 23rd, 2016, only 288 white nationalist accounts of the 4,000 Berger examined had been suspended and that was only after the social network put in place additional procedures for reporting abuse. The period saw temporary bans on 1,100 ISIS supporters.