Since acquiring Twitter in October 2022, billionaire tech investor Elon Musk has made headlines for his approach to management and administration of the company and its site, which boasts up to 450 million monthly users. Musk has been explicit in his desire to loosen what he sees as unnecessarily restrictive monitoring and moderation policies, which supporters claimed had reduced hate speech and misinformation.
Though much research has focused on the growth of racist and other speech on Twitter following Musk's takeover and subsequent changes, groups promoting jihad and terrorist memes have also found a home on the site. Although Twitter is not alone in facing the problem of extremist groups attempting to circumvent restrictions and controls to spread their ideology, Twitter's global platform and reputation as a forum for prominent thinkers and newsmakers does call into question whether the site has enacted controls adequate to address the scope of the problems it faces.
Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, And 9/11
MEMRI JTTM was able to identify several Twitter accounts using images associated with Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the attacks of September 11, 2001.
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