U.K. Urges Social Media to Tackle Terrorist Propaganda

U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd urged social media and technology companies to do more to identify and eliminate terrorist content from the internet, after a meeting in London with officials from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter, according to Bloomberg.

“We focused on the issue of access to terrorist propaganda online and the very real and evolving threat it poses,“ Rudd said in an emailed statement after the meeting. “I said I wanted to see this tackled head-on.“ The government is concerned that material readily available on the internet, including bomb-making manuals and Islamic State videos could radicalize Britons and inspire attacks such as last week’s assault in London.

As well as the technology giants, a number of smaller companies attended meeting, though the Home Office declined to name them. Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter put out a statement after the meeting saying they already share “best practices“ on tackling extreme content, and pledging to “urgently improve that collaboration, with appropriate transparency and civil society involvement.“

“Our companies are committed to making our platforms a hostile space for those who seek to do harm, and we have been working on this issue for several years,“ the companies said. “We share the government’s commitment to ensuring terrorists do not have a voice online.“ The companies stated that they would form a forum aiming to develop further technical tools to identify and remove terrorist propaganda and to help newer companies do so too.

“In taking forward this work I’d like to see the industry to go further and faster in not only removing online terrorist content but stopping it going up in the first place,“ Rudd said. “I’d also like to see more support for smaller and emerging platforms to do this as well, so they can no longer be seen as an alternative shop floor by those who want to do us harm.“

The results of meeting are “all a bit lame“ and the government and technology companies should “get on“ with removing extreme content from the internet, according to Yvette Cooper, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker who chairs Parliament’s cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee.

“Social media and the internet can be a fantastic force for immense good, but they also need to get their act together and stop the dangerous illegal poison spreading online,“ Cooper said in an emailed statement. “Having meetings about meetings just isn’t good enough when there is still illegal terrorist recruitment propaganda up online. They need to get on with taking it down, and to say what resources they will put into doing this.“