G7 to put squeeze on net giants
ISCHIA, ITALY — Tech giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter will come under pressure in Italy this week to go further and faster in helping G7 powers tackle the ever-greater threat of extremists online.
A two-day meet of Group of Seven interior ministers, which kicks off on the Italian island of Ischia on Thursday, comes just days after US-backed forces took full control of Raqa in Syria, which had become a byword for atrocities carried out by the Islamic State group.
Despite the breakthrough in the battle against IS, the head of Britain's domestic intelligence service said Wednesday that the UK was facing its most severe terrorist threat ever, particularly due to the spread of jihadist material online.
MI5 head Andrew Parker said attacks could now accelerate rapidly from inception to action, and "this pace, together with the way extremists can exploit safe spaces online, can make threats harder to detect."
In a first for a G7 meet, representatives from Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter will take part in the talks between the seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
"The internet plays a decisive role in radicalization. Over 80 percent of conversations and radicalization happen online," said Italy's Marco Minniti, who is hosting the summit on the volcanic island off Naples.
In June, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube announced the launch of an anti-terror partnership, the "Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism," aimed at thwarting the spread of extremist content online.
Facebook has launched campaigns in Belgium, Britain, France and Germany to develop "best practices."
And in September, Twitter touted victories in the battle against tweets promoting extremist violence, saying it has been vanquishing those kinds of accounts before governments even ask.
But last month top Western counter-terror chiefs said they need more support from social media companies to detect potential threats, particularly with jihadist attacks increasingly being carried out by homegrown "lone wolves."
Tough privacy laws and protections enjoyed by the largely US-based web giants are impeding authorities, they said.
Some firms are using software aimed at helping them quickly find and eliminate extremist content, developed by Dartmouth College computer science professor Hany Farid, a senior advisor to the US Counter Extremism Project.