‘Lives at risk’ as internet giants fail to tell police about terror fear
SOCIAL media giants are putting lives at risk by failing to alert police about extremist material on the internet, a terror expert said yesterday.
In the past four years, the top tech companies have made “zero proactive reports of suspicious behaviour”, Sir Mark Rowley revealed.
Sir Mark, who recently stood down as Britain’s top counter -terror police chief, warned the social media industry now faces tough new laws and heavy fines to bring them into line.
Irresponsible
Blasting the companies as “irresponsible”, he said: “When a social media firm finds someone sharing the most gruesome terrorism material or bomb-making instructions and then cancels their account, they do not tell the police.
“This makes the work of police and MI5 more difficult and endangers the public’s safety.”
Sir Mark also accused the industry of being too slow to remove offensive content.
He spoke out as legislation – including a tax on social media firms – is being considered by ministers to crack down on online threats posed by terrorists and paedophiles.
Sir Mark acknowledged the social media giants are coming round to accepting their responsibility for content following public outcry and loss of advertising revenue.
But he said progress is too late and too slow. He said the top online search result for a UK Muslim spokesman is Anjem Choudary – the hate preacher freed in October after he was jailed for five years for whipping up support for Islamic State.
Tech firms’ reluctance to tackle extremism is similar to how banks first reacted to calls for a crackdown on money laundering, added Sir Mark.
“Their arguments were spookily similar to those of the internet companies today,” he said. “We move money around the world and cannot be expected to know what is dirty, they told us.
“A combination of persuasion and regulation (with sanctions and fines), matched by a culture change in banks, means that they now work commendably hard to support the police. They try to identify suspicious activity and report it.”
He added: “Unfortunately, the tech sector is immature on such issues. Persuasion has made progress and these firms are increasingly helpful, but the change is not rapid enough.
“The Chancellor’s plan to consider a special tax for these companies could be used as leverage to get them to take action against vile extremist material.”
Clampdown
The most determined of terrorists would not be foiled by a clampdown on internet giants, Sir Mark said.
“But their ability to draw the vulnerable, angry and confused towards acts of terror will be greatly curtailed if the main supply lines of propaganda are disrupted.”
Sir Mark, an ex Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, supervised investigations into terror attacks including the Manchester Arena bombing and the Westminster and London Bridge atrocities.
Working with the security services, police have disrupted several plots by terrorists who were radicalised online.
IS is cult-like and an “open source organisation”, in contrast to the more secretive Al Qaeda or the IRA, said Sir Mark.