Ardern’s Paris summit targets social media
PM pushing for global solution to counter reach of online terrorism
A bunch of fluffy words sprinkled in stardust, or an effective global agreement between countries and tech companies that will make a meaningful difference?
That is the challenge that lies before Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as she heads to Paris tomorrow for the Christchurch Call summit next week.
Ardern has made a global impression during her tenure as Prime Minister, including from appearances at Apec and cradling her daughter Neve on the floor of the UN general assembly.
But Paris will be different because, though she is co-chairing the summit with French President Emmanuel Macron, it is one she has pushed for. And what transpires will be a reflection of her stature on the international scene, which skyrocketed in the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch terror attack.
Though the text of the call is still being negotiated, in general terms it is a commitment to stop terrorist and violent extremism content on socialmedia platforms.
The focus is Christchurch where, on March 15, a gunman walked into Al Noor Mosque and live-streamed the horrific attack from a camera on his helmet, connected to a mobile device. Fifty-one people eventually died from the events of that day, and dozens more were wounded.
Twelve minutes after the livestream ended, Facebook took down the video. But it was a notice from police, not one of its human monitors or its algorithms, that alerted Facebook to the video.
Within 24 hours, 900 variations of the video were uploaded 1.5 million times. It was designed to go viral.
Concerns have already been raised about what will come from Paris, and whether it will make any difference, or even be enforceable. Leaving social-media companies to regulate themselves has not endeared them to many, and did not prevent March 15.
Ardern has three key events in Paris: a Voices For Action meeting with civil-society members, a roundtable meeting with the tech companies, and the Christchurch Call summit with heads of state and the tech companies.
The first meeting will be chaired by Internet NZ chief executive and former Labour Party candidate Jordan Carter, and attended by academics, NGOs, tech industry players, and human-rights advocates.
“It’s the ‘everyone else’ category for the internet and technology sectors,” Carter told the Weekend Herald.
“They will be casting a light in analysing and critiquing, so having them on board for the call broadens the mandate behind what the call is asking for. A sharper level of scrutiny and engagement will make it more likely to have an impact.”
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has called for regulation to set out what is prohibited and require companies to build systems to minimise harmful content.
But Carter said it was important not to set expectations too high, and though he hadn’t seen the draft text of the call, he was not expecting a proposal for a global regulatory framework.
“There are no global examples of that for things that happen on the internet. There’s no global media-law framework. Even if you could get that kind of agreement, it would take a really, really long time.”
He said the narrow scope focusing on violent extremism and terrorist content would help get it across the line, with New Zealand leading the charge.
“This is us leading a global call to say, ‘You need to do better’. If we, as a tiny little country, can get that commitment to change, that will be important. Presuming they say ‘yes’, the question will be how you go about doing that.”
Part of the problem is that the AI technology is not advanced enough to capture this kind of content as it is uploaded.
Another issue is the global reach of such companies, leading to questions about which jurisdiction their content comes under.
Ardern has said that is why a global solution is needed, highlighting the importance of having several countries sign up.
Who will be attending is yet to be announced, but broad buy-in will be crucial; Ardern has only said so far that a “core group of leaders” will be there.
The summit will be held alongside the “Tech for Humanity” meeting of G7 Digital Ministers, meaning the leaders of G7 nations are likely to have been invited including the US’ Donald Trump, the UK’s Theresa May, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni and Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
Ardern has also spoken to the bosses of tech companies including Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Brad Smith.
Digital Media Minister Kris Faafoi, who will be in Paris for the G7 Digital Ministers meeting, said the starting point for the call was to eliminate content like the March 15 attack from being uploaded in the first place.
“Once these things are out there, they’re very hard to control.
“No one country can deal with this in isolation. We’re taking a leadership role to get other like-minded nations to put pressure on, and work with, these platforms to make sure March 15 can’t happen again.”
Facebook responded to the March 15 attack by saying it would ban posts about white nationalism and white separatism and look into restrictions on livestreaming, including having priority reviews on recently livestreamed material.
But Zuckerberg has already dampened down calls to delay livestreaming, saying it would “fundamentally break what livestreaming is”.
Carter disagreed: “I don’t think it is [appropriate] until they can show that they can work through the issues that have come to light from Christchurch.”
Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs and communications, Nick Clegg, said it was committed to curbing the spread of terrorism and extremism online.
“These are complex issues and we are committed to working with world leaders, governments, industry and safety experts at next week’s meeting and beyond on a clear framework of rules to help keep people safe from harm,” he said in a statement.
Given the ubiquity of social media and the sheer volume of uploaded video, Carter said it was unrealistic to think a commitment would prevent something like March 15 from ever happening again. But a Paris agreement could at least decrease the chances of that.
“We have to set the goal that it isn’t going to happen again. If everything stays the same as it is today, it could.”
This is us leading a global call to say, ‘You need to do better’. Jordan Carter, Internet NZ chief
Prime Minister Jacinda’s trip to Paris this week to co-chair the Christchurch Call summit with French President Emmanuel Macron will, strangely enough, be great social-media fare.
The May 15 meeting — piggybacking on an already planned meeting of digital ministers from the G7 countries — is expected to focus on initiatives to locate and remove violent terror content.
Expect the memes to flourish around the pair, and any proposals Macron and Ardern come up with to tackle the stinking mire of hateful content on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Some of these social posts will strike close to the heart of the issue — which ones are “hate speech”, which are permissible parody, and who decides?
Two days before the Paris meeting, independent public policy think-tank The Helen Clark Foundation will release a report, outlining the case for New Zealand to establish a social-media regulatory watchdog to crack down on such content.
Any initiative faces a big grey mass. The elephant in the room is freedom of expression — a principle ensconced foremost in the French Republic’s motto of libert, galit, fraternit.
Once again — as with suffragettes and nuclear weapons — New Zealand could lead the way, this time in forcing the world to confront the impacts of violent content. This meeting has the potential for Ardern to again exert New Zealand’s ability to punch far above its weight.
We’ll be watching Ardern’s socialmedia posts for the first word of it.