Twitter is clearly proud of its achievements in the fight against terrorism. In 20 months, the social media platform suspended more than 1.2 million accounts for terrorist content.

Key points: Twitter's action was discussed at a counter-terrorism meeting in Jakarta co-hosted by Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton

Twitter's action was discussed at a counter-terrorism meeting in Jakarta co-hosted by Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton Mr Dutton said the 1.2 million accounts Twitter suspended could be "just the tip of the iceberg"

Mr Dutton said the 1.2 million accounts Twitter suspended could be "just the tip of the iceberg" Twitter said it was continuing to see a positive and significant impact as a result of its early detection technology

And thanks to purpose-built early detection technology, 75 per cent of those accounts were suspended before they could even thumb out their first tweet.

"Twitter has been at the forefront of responding to the evolving challenge of preventing terrorist exploitation of the internet," a spokesperson for Twitter told the ABC.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is also impressed, describing the 1.2-million figure as an "incredible number" after co-hosting a sub-regional meeting on counter-terrorism in Jakarta.

But Mr Dutton said there was still much more work to be done.

"It's a significant figure but it may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the quantum that we need to deal with, not only today, but as the use of social media increases as the years go by," Mr Dutton said.

He also called on all social media platforms to do more in the fight against terrorism online.

"This is a very serious and significant issue and we need better engagement from those social media companies," he said.

Mr Dutton said at the meeting of the Five Eyes intelligence grouping (Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada) in Australia in August: "It was very hard to get the companies to turn up to be part of the conversation and that was incredibly disappointing."

He said social media companies had a "specific obligation" to assist law enforcement organisations in the fight against terrorism, particularly encrypted messaging services.

"People in Australia or people in Indonesia would expect law enforcement and intelligence agencies to be able to detect a message which was being conveyed over a social media platform that, had it not been detected, could have resulted in the loss of significant lives," he said.

In a statement online, Twitter said it had "permanently suspended" 272,460 accounts in the six months between July and December, 2017.

"This is down 8.4 per cent from the volume shared in the previous reporting period and is the second consecutive reporting period in which we've seen a drop," it said.

"We continue to see the positive, significant impact of years of hard work making our site an undesirable place for those seeking to promote terrorism, resulting in this type of activity increasing shifting away from Twitter."