Internet giants enlisted in fight against online extremism

Twitter and Facebook are obviously not enough for some people – they want the whole world to know how they feel when it comes to matters of the heart. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • EU Interior ministers and officials met representatives from the technology firms at a dinner in Luxembourg on Wednesday amid growing alarm that Islamist material is encouraging young Muslims to fight in Syria and Iraq.
  • The officials from search giant Google, social media leaders Facebook and Twitter, and software titan Microsoft explained how they have a "very large corporate responsibility not to show beheading videos," she said.

LUXEMBOURG,

The European Union and US Internet giants including Facebook and Twitter have agreed to work together to combat online extremism, and discussed steps that the firms are taking to block beheading videos, officials said Thursday.

EU Interior ministers and officials met representatives from the technology firms at a dinner in Luxembourg on Wednesday amid growing alarm that Islamist material is encouraging young Muslims to fight in Syria and Iraq.

EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said the US firms had told the Europeans "how they already work to not show these videos, which according to their internal policies are totally against their principles".

The officials from search giant Google, social media leaders Facebook and Twitter, and software titan Microsoft explained how they have a "very large corporate responsibility not to show beheading videos," she said.

But the Swede insisted that blocking websites "is not the question".

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In a joint statement later, Malmstroem and Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the two sides "agreed to organise joint training and awareness-raising workshops for the representatives of the law enforcement authorities, Internet industry and civil society".

Social media has become a powerful recruiting tool for jihadists, with the Islamic State militant group posting several videos online in recent weeks showing the grisly beheadings of Western hostages.

US Internet firms have sometimes been uneasy about blocking extremist material, seeing themselves as platforms rather than publications, and worrying about the implications for free speech, which is strongly protected under US law.

EU counter-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove, who was also at the dinner, said the US firms were "very eager to do their part" in what he described as a joint public-private effort to combat extremism.

They discussed "how can we remove from the Internet illegal content, how can we use it proactively in order to counter their narrative," he said.

"Twitter has made the life of ISIL (Islamic State) quite difficult. That's the reason why they moved from Twitter to another social network," he added.

Around 3,000 Europeans have travelled to fight with the Islamic State and other militant groups in Syria and Iraq, de Kerchove told AFP in September