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U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd is holding talks with several major internet companies today to urge them to be more proactive about\u00a0tackling the spread of extremist content online. Companies in attendance include\u00a0Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook, along with some smaller internet companies.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve contacted the four named companies for comment and will update this story with any response.<\/p>\n
Writing\u00a0in The Telegraph<\/a>\u00a0newspaper on Saturday, in the wake of\u00a0last week\u2019s terror attack in London<\/a>, Rudd said the U.K. government will shortly\u00a0be setting out an updated counterterrorism strategy that\u00a0will\u00a0prioritize doing more to tackle radicalization online.<\/p>\n \u201cOf paramount importance in this strategy will be how we tackle radicalisation online, and provide a counter-narrative to the vile material being spewed out by the likes of Daesh, and extreme Right-wing groups such as National Action, which I made illegal last year,\u201d she\u00a0wrote.\u00a0\u201cE<\/span>ach attack confirms again the role that the internet is playing in serving as a conduit, inciting and inspiring violence, and spreading extremist ideology of all kinds.\u201d<\/p>\n Leaning on tech firms to build tools appears to be\u00a0a key plank of that forthcoming strategy.<\/p>\n A government source told us that\u00a0Rudd will urge web\u00a0companies today to use technical solutions to automatically identify terrorist content before it can be widely disseminated.<\/p>\n We also understand the home secretary wants the companies to form an industry-wide body to take greater responsibility for tackling extremist content online \u2014 which is a slightly odd ask, given Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube already announced such a collaboration, in December last year<\/a>\u00a0(including creating a shared industry database\u00a0for speeding up identification and removal of terrorist content).<\/p>\n Perhaps Rudd wants more internet companies to be part of the collaboration. Or else more effective techniques for identifying and removing content at speed to be developed.<\/p>\n At today\u2019s\u00a0round-table we\u2019re told Rudd will also raise concerns about encryption \u2014\u00a0another technology she criticized in the wake of last week\u2019s attack<\/a>, arguing that law enforcement agencies must be able to \u201cget into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.\u201d<\/p>\n Such calls are of course hugely controversial, given how\u00a0encryption is used to safeguard data from exploitation by bad actors \u2014 the U.K. government itself\u00a0utilizes encryption\u00a0technology, as you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n So it remains to be seen whether Rudd\u2019s public call\u00a0for encrypted data to be accessible to law enforcement agencies constitutes the beginning of\u00a0a serious clampdown\u00a0on end-to-end encryption in the U.K. (NB: The government has already given itself powers to limit companies\u2019 use of the tech<\/a>, via last year\u2019s Investigatory Powers Act) \u2014 or merely a strategy\u00a0to apply high-profile pressure to social media companies in trying to strong-arm them\u00a0into doing more about\u00a0removing extremist content from their public networks.<\/p>\n We understand the main thrust of today\u2019s discussions will certainly be on the latter issue, with the government seeking greater co-operation from social platforms in\u00a0combating the spread of terrorist propaganda. Encryption is set to be discussed in\u00a0further separate discussions, we are told.<\/p>\n In her\u00a0Telegraph article, Rudd argued that the government cannot fight terrorism without the help of internet\u00a0companies, big\u00a0and small.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need the help of social media companies, the Googles, the Twitters, the Facebooks of this world. And the smaller ones, too: platforms such as Telegram, WordPress and Justpaste.it. We need them to take a more proactive and leading role in tackling the terrorist abuse of their platforms. We need them to develop further technology solutions. We need them to set up an industry-wide forum to address the global threat,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n One stark irony of the Brexit process \u2014 which got under way in the U.K. this Wednesday,\u00a0when\u00a0the government\u00a0formally informed\u00a0the European Union of its intention to leave the bloc \u2014 is that security cooperation between the U.K. and the EU is apparently being used as a bargaining chip<\/a>, with the U.K. government warning\u00a0it may\u00a0no longer share data with the EU\u2019s central law enforcement agency in the future\u00a0if there is no Brexit deal.<\/p>\n Which does rather throw a sickly cast o\u2019er\u00a0Rudd\u2019s call for internet companies to be more proactive in fighting terrorism.<\/p>\n Not all of the companies Rudd\u00a0called out in her\u00a0article will be in attendance at today\u2019s meeting. Pavel Durov, co-founder of the messaging app Telegram, confirmed to TechCrunch that it will not be there, for instance. The messaging app has frequently been criticized as a \u201ctool of choice\u201d for terrorists, although\u00a0Durov has stood firm<\/a> in his defense of encryption \u2014 arguing that users\u2019 right to privacy is more important than \u201cour fear of bad things happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Telegram has today<\/a> announced the rollout of\u00a0end-to-end encrypted voice calls to its platform, doubling down on one of Rudd\u2019s\u00a0technologies of concern\u00a0(albeit, Telegram\u2019s \u201chomebrew\u201d encryption is not the same as the respected Signal Protocol, used by WhatsApp, and has taken\u00a0heavy criticism from\u00a0security researchers).<\/p>\n But on the public propaganda front, Telegram does\u00a0already\u00a0act to remove terrorist content<\/a>\u00a0being spread via its\u00a0public channels. Earlier this week it\u00a0published a blog post<\/a> defending the role\u00a0of end-to-end encryption in safeguarding people\u2019s privacy and freedom of speech, and accusing the mass media of being the priory conduit through which terrorist propaganda spreads.<\/p>\n \u201cTerrorist channels still pop up [on Telegram] \u2014 just as they do on other networks \u2014 but they are reported almost immediately and are shut down within hours, well before they can get any traction,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in a\u00a0biannual Transparency Report<\/a>\u00a0published last week, Twitter revealed it had suspended a total of\u00a0636,248 accounts, between August 1, 2015 through to December 31, 2016, for violations related to the promotion of terrorism \u2014 saying the majority of the accounts (74 percent) were\u00a0identified by its own \u201cinternal, proprietary spam-fighting tools,\u201d i.e. rather than via user reports.<\/p>\n Twitter\u2019s report underlines\u00a0the scale of the challenge posed by extremist\u00a0content spread via\u00a0social platforms, given the volume\u00a0of content uploads involved \u2014 which are orders of magnitude greater on more\u00a0popular social platforms like\u00a0Facebook and YouTube, meaning there\u2019s more material to sift through to locate and eject any\u00a0extremist material.<\/p>\n In\u00a0February, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also\u00a0discussed<\/a>\u00a0the issue of terrorist content online, and specifically his\u00a0hope that AI will play a larger role in the future to tackle this\u00a0challenge, although he also cautioned that \u201cit will take many years to fully develop these systems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, we\u2019re starting to explore ways to use AI to tell the difference between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda so we can quickly remove anyone trying to use our services to recruit for a terrorist organization. This is technically difficult as it requires building AI that can read and understand news, but we need to work on this to help fight terrorism worldwide,\u201d he wrote then.<\/p>\n In an earlier draft <\/a>of the open letter, Zuckerberg suggested AI could even be used to identify terrorists plotting attacks via private channels \u2014 likely via analysis of account behavior\u00a0patterns, according to a\u00a0source, not by backdooring encryption (the company already uses machine learning for fighting spam and malware on the\u00a0end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp, for example).<\/p>\n His edited\u00a0comment on private channels\u00a0suggests there are metadata-focused alternative techniques that governments could pursue\u00a0to glean intel from within encrypted apps without needing to demand access to the\u00a0content itself \u2014 albeit, political pressure may well be on the social platforms themselves to be doing the leg work there.<\/p>\n Rudd is clearly pushing internet companies\u00a0to do\u00a0more and do\u00a0it quicker\u00a0when it comes to removing\u00a0extremist content. So Zuckerberg\u2019s time frame of a potential AI fix \u201cmany years\u201d ahead likely won\u2019t wash. Political time frames tend to be much tighter.<\/p>\n She\u2019s not the only politician stepping up the rhetoric. Social media giants are facing growing pressure in Germany, which earlier this month<\/a> proposed a new law for social media platforms to deal with hate-speech complaints. The country previously secured agreements from the companies to remove\u00a0illegal content within 24 hours of a complaint being made, but the government has accused Facebook and Twitter especially of not taking user complaints seriously enough \u2014 hence, it says, it\u2019s going down a legislative route now.<\/p>\n A report in The Telegraph<\/a> last week suggested the U.K. government is also considering a new law to prosecute internet companies if terrorist content is not immediately taken down when reported. Although ministers were apparently questioning how such a law could be enforced when\u00a0companies are\u00a0based overseas, as indeed most of the internet companies in question are.<\/p>\n Another possibility: the Home Office was selectively leaking a threat of legislation ahead of today\u2019s meeting, to try to encourage internet companies to come up with alternative fixes.<\/p>\n Yesterday, digital and humans rights groups, including Privacy International, the Open Rights Group, Liberty and Human Rights Watch, called on the U.K. government\u00a0to be \u201ctransparent\u201d and \u201copen\u201d about the discussions it\u2019s having with internet companies. \u201cPrivate, informal agreements are not consistent with open, democratic governance,\u201d they wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment requests directed to tech companies to take down content is de facto state censorship. Some requests may be entirely legitimate but the sheer volumes make us highly concerned about their validity and the accountability of the processes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe need assurances that only illegal material will be sought out by government officials and taken down by tech companies,\u201d they added. \u201cTransparency and judicial oversight are needed over government takedown requests.\u201d<\/p>\n The group also called out Rudd for not publicly referencing existing powers at the government\u2019s disposal, and expressed concern that any \u201ctechnological limitations to encryption\u201d they seek could have damaging implications for citizens\u2019 \u201cpersonal security.\u201d<\/p>\n They wrote:<\/p>\n We also note that Ms Rudd may seek to use Technical Capability Notices (TCNs) to enforce changes [to encryption]; and these would require secrecy. We are therefore surprised that public comments by Ms Rudd have not referenced her existing powers.<\/p>\n We do not believe that the TCN process is robust enough in any case, nor that it should be applied to non-UK providers, and are concerned about the precedent that may be set by companies complying with a government over requests like these.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Home Office did not respond to a request for\u00a0comment on the group\u2019s open letter, nor respond to specific questions about its\u00a0discussions today with internet companies, but a government source told us that\u00a0the meeting is\u00a0private.<\/p>\n Earlier this week Rudd faced ridicule on social media<\/a>, and suggestions<\/a> from tech industry figures that she does not fully understand the workings\u00a0of\u00a0the technologies she\u2019s calling out, following\u00a0comments made during a BBC interview on Sunday \u2014 in which she said people in the technology industry understand \u201cthe necessary hashtags<\/a> to stop this stuff even being put up.\u201d<\/p>\n The more likely explanation is that the undoubtedly well-briefed home secretary is playing politics in an attempt to gain an edge with\u00a0a group\u00a0of very powerful,\u00a0overseas-based internet giants.<\/p>\n\n