Britons top Europe table for reading jihadist propaganda

●Report finds 100 new pieces of content published each week by IS

Online jihadist content attracts more clicks in Britain than any other country in Europe, a major new report warns.

The in-depth study by think tank Policy Exchange says tens of thousands of users access jihadist material online from all over the globe.

But researchers found the UK was the fifth most frequent location from which content was accessed – after Turkey, the US, Saudi Arabia and Iraq – and registered the largest number of clicks in Europe.

It came as an investigation continues into last week’s bombing on the London underground, with one of the two men being questioned reported to have links to Scotland.

In a foreword to today’s report, former US military chief General David Petraeus focused on last week’s events at Parsons Green.

He said: “The attempted bombing of an underground train in London last Friday – using a device that can be built from instructions available online – merely underscored once again the ever-present nature of this threat.”

Gen Petraeus warned that efforts to combat extremism online until now have been “inadequate”.

He wrote: “There is no doubting the urgency of this matter. The status quo clearly is unacceptable.”

Analysts found so-called Islamic State (IS) is still pumping out vast volumes of internet propaganda despite coming under intense military pressure in Iraq and Syria. Experts say the group produces around 100 pieces of

new content in an average week – but this is a conservative estimate.

Concerns over the availability of terrorist material such as execution videos and bomb-making instructions on the internet have intensified after Britain was targeted by its fifth terror attack of the year.

The 131-page assessment finds that the decline of IS – also known as Isis or Daesh – on the internet has been “significantly overstated”.

The report details how in an average week IS produces more than 100 new core articles, videos and newspapers. It said IS now uses encrypted messaging service Telegram as the core communication platform for talking to sympathisers but jihadists have not abandoned other platforms, with content also regularly accessed via Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Lead author Dr Martyn Frampton said governments and security services have been playing a “fruitless game of ‘whacka-mole’” which is focused on removing individual pieces of content.

He warned: “The evidence suggests that we are not winning the war against online extremism and we need to consider options for change.

“If the internet companies won’t do what their customers want and take more responsibility for removing this content, then government must take action through additional regulation and legislation.”

Major technology firms have repeatedly faced calls to step up efforts to detect and take down extremist videos and web pages.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Youtube have set up the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to spearhead efforts to clamp down on extremist content.

Twitter says terrorist content has no place on the platform. Figures show 636,248 accounts were suspended between August 2015 and December 2016 for the promotion of terrorism.

A Google spokeswoman said: “Violent extremism is a complex problem and addressing it is a critical challenge for us all.”