The digital door has been slammed on the Islamic State (ISIS), with Twitter quietly suspending at least 2,000 accounts linked to the group and its supporters in recent days,
ABC News reports.
Thirteen of 16 major ISIS distribution accounts were among those shuttered, according to analyst J.M. Berger.
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"Twitter has been doing a whole lot over the past week," he told ABC News. "They've slammed them pretty hard, including the official media distribution guys."
ISIS
has made bold use of social media sites, including Twitter, to recruit fighters.
According to ABC News, Twitter’s suspension spree wasn't sparked by government pressure; the intelligence community would prefer the accounts stay open so they could be monitored, one unnamed source tells ABC News.
It's media pressure that's led to the closures: because of increased media reporting, more user-generated policy violation have been reported, the source says, noting, for example, it's against Twitter’s policy to make direct, specific threats of violence against others.
A message posted online
threatening Twitter founder Jack Dorsey followed the accounts' shutdown, ABC News reports.
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"I would certainly be concerned if I were Twitter," Berger tells ABC News.