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The UK Prime Minister is using the annual G7 summit of seven of the world\u2019s major industrialized democracies\u00a0to push for more to be done about\u00a0online extremism, including co-ordinating on ways to force social media platforms\u00a0to be more pro-active about removing and reporting extremist content to authorities.<\/p>\n
Theresa May is chairing a counter-terrorism session at the G7 summit today in Sicily, meeting with the leaders of the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and representatives of\u00a0the European Union.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a drum\u00a0her own Home Secretary has been banging at home\u00a0in recent months<\/a>. And just the latest instance of the political thumbscrews being applied to social media\u00a0giants.<\/p>\n In Germany in April<\/a>, for example, the government backed proposals to levy fines of up to \u20ac50 million on social media firms\u00a0that fail to promptly remove illegal hate speech from their platforms.<\/p>\n Before leaving for the summit yesterday the BBC<\/a> reported May\u00a0planned to\u00a0lead a discussion with her fellow world leaders on how to \u201cwork together to prevent the plotting of terrorist attacks online and to stop the spread of hateful extremist ideology on social media\u201d.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>, she\u00a0is expected to\u00a0tell her G7 counterparts that the fight\u00a0against ISIS is shifting from the \u201cbattlefield to the Internet\u201d, and to urge them to co-operate to enforce stricter rules on\u00a0social media companies.<\/p>\n Specifically, the newspaper said\u00a0May will press for\u00a0social media firms to:<\/p>\n The move follows another\u00a0terror attack on UK soil after a suicide bomber blew himself up at\u00a0a pop concert in Manchester on Monday evening, killing and wounding multiple people.<\/p>\n Although there have been no\u00a0suggestions so\u00a0far that social media platforms could have\u00a0thwarted the attack\u00a0by providing\u00a0pre-emptive intelligence.<\/p>\n Indeed, the UK government\u2019s own counterterrorism\u00a0policies are facing\u00a0the most\u00a0uncomfortable\u00a0questions in the wake of the\u00a0attack, given the bomber had been repeatedly reported to police\u00a0in the years prior. Yet was not, evidently, stopped from\u00a0obtaining the know-how or\u00a0materials to construct a\u00a0bomb. Nor from successful executing an\u00a0attack.<\/p>\n Other recent instances of terrorism on UK soil\u00a0have included an attack in Westminster in March, when a lone\u00a0attacker used a car and knives to attack pedestrians and police. The Westminster attacker apparently sent a WhatsApp message<\/a> minutes before commencing the attack saying he was waging jihad in revenge for Western foreign policy.<\/p>\n While a homemade bomb planted on a London Underground Tube train in October last year, which failed to go off, had apparently been put together by the teenage perpetrator following instructions\u00a0found online<\/a>.<\/p>\n The problem for UK security services is they are under-resourced to meet the scale of the threat. As\u00a0Muddassar Ahmed writes today in\u00a0The Independent<\/a>, there are around\u00a03,000 people on UK terror watch lists \u2014 yet only 4,000 staff in MI5, the domestic intelligence agency. The agency\u00a0simply does not have the manpower\u00a0to closely monitor\u00a0so many potential terrorists.<\/p>\n May has also faced specific criticism in the wake of the Manchester attack for cuts the government made to UK police numbers. She had\u00a0apparently been warned<\/a> two years ago that cuts to community policing in Manchester could threaten counter terrorism efforts in the city. The optics at this point look terrible.<\/p>\n Her G7 comments\u00a0therefore risk looking like an attempt to shift both blame and responsibility \u2014 with May\u00a0leaning out to\u00a0apply pressure on\u00a0social media firms in a bid to effectively\u00a0outsource the responsibility for terrorism monitoring to tech platforms. At a time when her own\u00a0government\u2019s policy towards domestic policing and counterterrorism resourcing looks to be lacking.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most significant push\u00a0she\u2019s making at the G7 is for the countries to\u00a0co-ordinate on revising industry guidelines on harmful material and on the conditions they place on tech firms. Although, according to Guardian sources, she\u2019s not advocating for financing penalties at this stage (such as those already\u00a0on the table in Germany).<\/p>\n The paper quotes\u00a0a senior government source saying May wants the the G7 nations to \u201cmove towards a common approach focused on the need to defeat [Isis]. In particular she wants to use G7 to call for the members to adopt a collective approach when working with tech companies on this agenda, and she will say that the industry has a social responsibility to do more to remove harmful content from its networks\u201d.<\/p>\n However,\u00a0whether she will be able to\u00a0convince\u00a0President Trump to join a collective\u00a0attempt to apply extra\u00a0pressure on\u00a0US tech giants is not\u00a0clear.<\/p>\n Much of what\u00a0she\u2019s generally calling for social media firms to do is already arguably taking place. For example, Facebook has previously said it is working on tools and technologies to try to automate flagging up extremist content, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly discussing the potential of AI to help with content review.<\/p>\n Facebook\u00a0also emphasizes that it\u00a0does already reach out to authorities if it finds evidence of\u00a0an imminent threat of harm or terrorism. And does already use AI and image and video matching technology when it identifies terrorist content to try to unearth related\u00a0content and accounts, for example.<\/p>\n That said,\u00a0ongoing criticism of the effectiveness of Facebook\u2019s\u00a0content moderation processes underline the scale of the company\u2019s\u00a0own\u00a0challenge on this front. And the 3,000 additional moderation staff<\/a> announced by Zuckerberg in the wake of another content moderation scandal represents\u00a0a tiny drop in the ocean for a platform with nearly two billion users.<\/p>\n With the additional moderator headcount Facebook\u00a0will still only have 7,500 people employed to review all flagged content \u2014 so more than MI5\u2019s headcount but relatively far fewer, given the staggering scale of its content moderation challenge, which runs the gamut\u00a0from reviewing and making judgements on extremism\/terrorist related content; to child abuse and other criminal content; to hate speech and racism; to\u00a0violence and cruelty of all stripes. All the while aiming\u00a0to balance \u2018safety with openness\u2019, as it puts it, i.e.\u00a0preferring the sharing of controversial\/disturbing content \u2014 provided it\u2019s not illegal\/sadistic. (A very\u00a0tricky balancing act to pull off<\/a>, evidently.)<\/p>\n In a statement today responding to May\u2019s comments on\u00a0extremist content, Facebook\u2019s Monika Bickert, head of global policy management, said:\u00a0\u201cWe want to provide a service where people feel safe. That means we do not allow groups or people that engage in terrorist activity, or posts that express support for terrorism. Using a combination of technology and human review, we work aggressively to remove terrorist content from our platform as soon as we become aware of it \u2014 and if there is an emergency involving imminent harm to someone\u2019s safety, we notify law enforcement. Online extremism can only be tackled with strong partnerships. We have long collaborated with policymakers, civil society, and others in the tech industry, and we are committed to continuing this important work together.\u201d<\/p>\n Twitter did not provide\u00a0a statement when contacted for comment but a spokesman pointed to what he said are proactive technological steps the platform takes with regards countering violent extremism, such as using technological tools to surface accounts that are promoting terrorism. He noted, for example, that between July 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016, a total of 376,890 Twitter accounts were suspended for this reason<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 with 74 per cent of those having been surfaced by the platform\u2019s tech tools rather than via user reports.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n