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US officials claim pro-ISIS Twitter traffic fell 45 percent in two years

US officials claim pro-ISIS Twitter traffic fell 45 percent in two years

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Members of the Islamic State have proven themselves deft at using social media, but the Obama administration claims its attempt to push back against the propaganda is having an effect. Officials released numbers to the Associated Press detailing US counter-propaganda efforts, and they say that Twitter traffic from pro-ISIS accounts has fallen 45 percent in two years.

As the AP points out, the administration has focused its campaign on Twitter, but without data for other platforms, it's difficult to get a complete picture of ISIS activities — the group may have, for one example, shifted some efforts to other services. Officials did not release the information publicly, so it's not clear exactly what definitions for pro-ISIS traffic were used, although the AP notes that keywords like "Caliphate" (a likely pro-ISIS tern) and "Daesh" (likely anti-ISIS) were used to measure sentiment.

For its part, Twitter has said that it's taken steps of its own to respond to the presence of ISIS on the service. In February, the company said it had banned 125,000 ISIS accounts since mid-2015.