its failure to shut down tweeters who engage in cyberbullying and threats

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world and has even become a favorite platform for terrorist groups like ISIS to spread propaganda in the hopes of recruiting fighters.

A recent report compiled by a Brookings Institute fellow to be published next month by the Brooking's Institution identified up to 46,000 Twitter accounts that were operated by ISIS sympathizers last fall.

Yahoo News reports that Congress will be writing a letter to twitter this week along with other social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook to tell them they need to develop a strategy for controlling terror groups online.

'This is the way [ISIS] is recruiting — they are getting people to leave their homelands and become fighters,' said Texas Congressman Ted Poe, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, who held a recent hearing on the issue.

Fighting online terrorism: Republican Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas, is at the forefront of the battle of online terrorism on social media sites like Twitter

Poe told Yahoo News that the US government will demand that Twitter actively shut down terrorist's profiles to prevent them from tweeting and recruiting people to commit violence.

Poe has said 'there is frustration with Twitter specifically' about their lack of effectively shutting down pages that threaten violence.

Congress hopes to treat online terror groups the same way they treat child pornography and noted Twitter was better about removing obscene images than they were about eliminating terror groups online.

Twitter officials are arguing that they have just as stringent a policy as other social media outlets and those critics are ignoring their behind the scenes help to the FBI.

'Like our peer companies, we do not proactively monitor content,' a Twitter spokesman said in an email to Yahoo News.

'We review all reported content against our rules, which prohibit unlawful use and direct, specific threats of violence against others. Users report potential rules violations to us, we review their reports and take action if the content violates our rules,' it continued.

Terrorists on Twitter: Oftentimes Twitter did not become aware of terrorists on their site until other Twitter users flagged the abuse online

J.M. Berger, the Brookings Institute fellow who conducted the recent social media study, suggested that Twitter's problems are of their own making.

'Twitter is notoriously close-mouthed in how they handle suspensions and what goes on in the company,' said Berger.

'We don’t know who they suspend, and why. Of all the social media companies, they have been very reluctant to be involved in discussions with the government, Berger continued.

He then went on to say that the company's founders have 'libertarian views.'

In the past Twitter has been criticized by White House staff such as Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, who said that Twitter, ‘wouldn’t even return [White House officials’] phone calls.'

A White House official said recently that Twitter will be sending representatives to the White House Summit this week but no Twitter executives will be speaking in any panels.

Matt Olsen, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center has called ISIS the 'most sophisticated propaganda machine; of any terror group.

Yahoo News reports that ISIS on Twitter recruits young people and pushes them to commit lone wolf terrorism.

The terror groups often use popular hashtags like #World Cup and #Ebola to expand their readership.

Twitter has argued that they take their guidance from the FBI who instructed them to leave ISIS twitter's online.

Call for violence: Twitter user Mujahid Miski who has had a total of 20 or more Twitter accounts because they kept getting deleted called upon Muslims to kill Jews

'We’ll take them down when the FBI tells us to take them down,' Poe said Twitter officials have argued in the meetings he has had with them.

FBI officials have also confirmed that they told Twitter to leave some profiles online so that they could identify potential terrorists.

'The risk of recruitment and incitement to violence outweighs the benefits from surveilling them and finding out who they are,' said former George W. Bush White House counterterrorism adviser Fran Townsend, who heads a private group called the Counter Extremism Project, said in an interview.

An internal memo written by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo criticized his company's failure to shut down tweeters who engage in cyberbullying and sexual harassment on its network.

'We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform,' Costolo wrote in the memo.

'We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.'

One ISIS member on Twitter by the name of Mujahid Miski (identified by court papers as Mohammed Abdullah Hassan) made over 20 accounts after they kept getting shut down.

One of his tweets read,' Allahu Akbar, 5 Jews were sent to hell by two brave Muslims. Allahu Akbar, if only every Muslims could kill 1 Jew, everything would change.'

Miski has boasted on Twitter that by slightly changing the name on his account he can make a new Twitter.

'My view is that we can kick them off, but it’s not going to solve the issue,' said Quinten Wiktorowicz, a former White House national security adviser under Obama who specialized in countering-violent-extremism issues.

'It really is playing whack-a-mole.'