Call for tech giants to face taxes over extremist content

Internet companies should face a tax punishment for failing to deal with the threat of terrorism in the UK, security minister Ben Wallace has said.

Wallace said firms such as Facebook, Google and Youtube were too slow to remove radical content online, forcing the government to act instead, BBC reported.

While tech firms were ‘ruthless profiteers’, governments were spending millions policing the web, he added. Facebook said Wallace was wrong to say it put profits before safety. Youtube said violent extremism was a ‘complex problem’ and addressing it was a ‘critical challenge for us all’.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wallace said tech giants were failing to help prevent the radicalization of people online.

“Because content is not taken down as quickly as they could do,” he claimed, “we’re having to de-radicalize people who have been radicalized. That’s costing millions.”

He said the refusal of messaging services — such as Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook — to give the security services access to message data was “turning the Internet into an anarchic violent space”.

“Because of encryption and because of radicalization, the cost of that is heaped on law enforcement agencies,” Wallace told the newspaper.

‘Further and faster’

In September Theresa May called for technology companies to take down terror content within two hours

Simon Milner, policy director at Facebook, said Wallace was wrong to say the company put profit before safety, especially in the fight against terrorism.

He said millions of pounds had been invested in people and technology to identify and remove terrorist content.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd and her European counterparts have welcomed coordinated efforts which were having a significant impact, he added.

“But this is an ongoing battle and we must continue to fight it together, indeed our CEO recently told our investors that in 2018 we will continue to put the safety of our community before profits.”

‘No easy fix’

A Youtube spokesperson told the BBC it was committed to being ‘part of the solution’ and was doing more every day to tackle the problem.

This year it had invested in machine-learning technology, recruited more reviewers of content and built partnerships with experts and collaborated with other companies, they added. Google has yet to respond to Wallace’s remarks. However, speaking in September, Kent Walker, general counsel for Google, said tech firms would not be able to ‘do it alone’.