Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube (Google) today announced the creation of a Global Internet Forum to Combat Terrorism. Describing the expansion of terrorism and radical extremism as a "critical challenge for mankind", the four companies decided to work hand in hand to share their best technologies and operational capacities, for better action against the " Threat of terrorist content online ".
Earlier this year, the Internet giant quartet announced a partnership including the creation of a "hash" database - including fingerprints - for violent terrorist or propaganda images and videos.
This new forum comes after discussions between various governments, including the United Kingdom and the Council of Europe. After recent attacks on British soil, Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May called for international regulation of cyberspace in international agreements to halt the spread of " Radical extremism and terrorism. Emmanuel Macron announced a joint campaign to stop radicalization online, which will include the creation of a new legal responsibility for companies to remove dangerous content, penalizing them with fines if they do not, According to The Guardian.
The platform, which will bring together many companies in addition to its four founders, will focus on technology solutions, research, and knowledge sharing. The four companies are already "associated with organizations such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Anti-Defamation League and the Global Network Initiative to identify the best way to fight extremism and hate online , While respecting freedom of expression and privacy ".
The four giants also presented their "collective counter-discourse initiatives" and said that the forum "would allow us to learn and contribute to counter-discourse efforts and discuss how to improve empowerment and Training of civil organizations; And people who could be engaged in similar work and support ongoing projects such as the Civil Society Empowerment Project (CSEP). "
Although not mentioned, users will also be able to play a key role in this fight against terrorism, for example by using the reporting function to inform moderators of any potentially dangerous content on their platforms.
