The Home Affairs Committee’s report covers a wide range of issues; mainstream media reports abound (though many focus on the Internet aspects). Its principal recommendation is that the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) should be upgraded into a high-tech, state-of-the-art, round-the-clock, central Operational Hub ‘which locates the perils early, moves quickly to block them and is able to instantly share the sensitive information with other security agencies’. It recommends that representatives of all the relevant agencies should be co-located within CTIRU.
The Committee’s press release summarises its findings under a number of headings, the material under the technology heading is set out below.
Technology
· Cyber-war, the use of the internet to promote radicalisation and terrorism, is one of the greatest threats that countries including the UK face. The vital function that the Metropolitan Police’s CTIRU performs needs to be enhanced, extended and much better resourced to meet the scale of the ongoing threat. Its funding, equipment and operation should reflect the urgency and importance of its crucial work in trying to protect the public from fanatics and criminals.
· Although between mid-2015 and February 2016, Twitter had suspended over 125,000 accounts globally that were linked to terrorists, and Google removed over 14 million videos globally in 2014 which related to all kinds of abuse, these are in reality a drop in the ocean. “They must accept that the hundreds of millions in revenues generated from billions of people using their products needs to be accompanied by a greater sense of responsibility and ownership for the impact that extremist material on their sites is having.” These companies have teams of only a few hundred employees to monitor networks of billions of accounts and Twitter does not even proactively report extremist content to law enforcement agencies. If they continue to fail to tackle this issue and allow their platforms to become the ‘Wild West’ of the internet, it will erode their reputations.
On social media issues, the report itself states in its conclusions:
7.The internet has a huge impact in contributing to individuals turning to extremism, hatred and murder. Social media companies are consciously failing to combat the use of their sites to promote terrorism and killings. Networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the vehicle of choice in spreading propaganda and they have become the recruiting platforms for terrorism. They must accept that the hundreds of millions in revenues generated from billions of people using their products needs to be accompanied by a greater sense of responsibility and ownership for the impact that extremist material on their sites is having. There must be a zero tolerance approach to online extremism, including enticement to join extremist groups or commit attacks of terror and any glorification of such activities. Manuals for terrorists and extremists should be removed from the internet. It is therefore alarming that these companies have teams of only a few hundred employees to monitor networks of billions of accounts and that Twitter does not even proactively report extremist content to law enforcement agencies. These companies are hiding behind their supranational legal status to pass the parcel of responsibility and refusing to act responsibly in case they damage their brands. If they continue to fail to tackle this issue and allow their platforms to become the ‘Wild West’ of the internet, then it will erode their reputation as responsible operators. (Paragraph 38)
8.The EU rules introduced in May are a first step towards the internet companies assuming more responsibility. The UK Government should now enforce its own measures to ensure that the large technology companies operating in this country are required to cooperate with CTIRU promptly and fully, by investigating sites and accounts propagating hate speech, and then either shutting them down immediately, or providing an explanation to CTIRU of why this has not been done. This activity would be facilitated by the companies co-locating staff within the upgraded CTIRU and we recommend that this be part of its enhanced operations. We do not see why the success of the Internet Watch Foundation cannot be replicated in the area of countering online extremism. (Paragraph 39)
9.The Government must also require the companies to be transparent about their actions on online extremism; instead of the piecemeal approach we currently have, they should all publish quarterly statistics showing how many sites and accounts they have taken down and for what reason. Facebook and Twitter should implement a trusted flagger system similar to Google’s and all social media companies must be more willing to give such trusted status to smaller community organisations, thereby empowering them in the fight against extremism. In short, what cannot appear legally in the print or broadcast media, namely inciting hatred and terrorism, should not be allowed to appear on social media. This is all the more necessary when one takes into account Daesh’s view that inciting individuals to take action “in the heart” of countries is “more effective and damaging” to those countries than action taken by Daesh itself. (Paragraph 40)
- Read what the Committee describes as ‘the key facts‘
- Read the report conclusions and recommendations
- Read the full report: Radicalisation: the counter-narrative and identifying the tipping point
