Out-Law News 1 min. read

Industry urged to develop technology to prevent terrorist content appearing online


Technology companies have been urged to "develop new technological solutions" to prevent terrorist content from being uploaded to the internet.

In a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, UK prime minister Theresa May said that the process for removing online terrorist content should be automated.

The UK, French and Italian governments said internet companies should remove terrorist content from their platforms within one to two hours of it appearing, according to a statement from the prime minister's office.

"Terrorist groups are aware that links to their propaganda are being removed more quickly, and are placing a greater emphasis on disseminating content at speed in order to stay ahead," May said. "Industry needs to go further and faster in automating the detection and removal of terrorist content online, and developing technological solutions which prevent it being uploaded in the first place."

The statement from the prime minister's office acknowledged that internet companies "are already making progress towards the automatic identification of terrorist content".

Google and YouTube use technology to automatically identify terrorist videos loaded to their platforms, while 75% of the near-300,000 accounts that Twitter suspended in the first half of 2017 were suspended before the user had posted their first tweet, it said. The statement also acknowledged Facebook's commitment to explore the use of artificial intelligence to "automate the identification of terrorist material".

May said governments around the world also need to do more to address online extremism.

"We need a fundamental shift in the scale and nature of our response – both from industry and governments – if we are to match the evolving nature of terrorists’ use of the internet," May said. "This is a global problem that transcends national interests. Governments must work with and support the efforts of industry and civil society if we are to achieve real and continuing progress and prevent the spread of extremism and terrorist use of cyberspace. In order to succeed, we must be united in our determination to fight terrorist exploitation of the internet."

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