War against Internet violence

Tech giants vow to step up fight against online extremism

PARIS: Major tech firms have pledged to come up with new measures for stamping out violent extremist content on the Internet, amid growing pressure from governments pushing for action in the wake of the massacres at two New Zealand mosques in March.

Executives from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft met with the leaders of France, New Zealand and other countries in Paris on Wednesday to unveil the Christchurch Call of voluntary commitments for online platforms.

It was named for the New Zealand city where a gunman killed 51 people at two mosques while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook via a head-mounted camera.

The social networking giant has faced withering criticism since the attack after the horrific footage was uploaded and shared millions of times despite efforts to remove it.

“The call is a roadmap to action,” New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“It commits us all to build a more humane Internet which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes.”

Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon later released a nine-point plan for jointly putting the Christchurch pledges in motion, in particular for addressing the threat posed by livestreaming.

They promised investments in “digital fingerprinting” to track and remove harmful pictures and videos, as well as easy-to-use methods for users to report illicit content.

“This is leading to real action, which can play an important role in at least preventing a number of these kinds of attacks,” Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said in Paris.

“No one wants to see the Internet used as the staging ground for these kinds of terrorist atrocities.”

Facebook had already promised on Wednesday to tighten access to Facebook Live, in particular by denying the service to users who have shared extremist content.

The largely symbolic initiative is intended to keep up the pressure on social media companies, which face growing calls from politicians across the world to prevent their platforms from becoming stages for broadcasting extremist violence.

“Our goal is to never again see the Internet transformed into a crazy propaganda machine,” Macron said.

The Christchurch Call meeting ran in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called Tech for Good, which gathered 80 tech executives to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good. — AFP