Internet giants have blood on their hands

NICE, Berlin, London, Stockholm, London again – and now Barcelona and Cambrils. As we grieve again for terror victims and their families, there’s a temptation to think little can be done to stop Islamist fanatics from venting their pointless bloodlust.

But there is something politicians and the public can and must do. We all have an obligation to help root out those who encourage impressionable young zealots to murder and maim for deluded ends that no amount of bloodshed will ever achieve.

In Britain, this week’s news that tip-offs to the anti-terror hotline surged sixfold in six months offered an encouraging sign that peace-loving citizens, not least in Muslim communities, are waking up to our shared duty of vigilance. But one group shows no such responsibility. The shocking truth is that even after scores of murders, arrogant internet giants still drag their feet over taking down inflammatory material.

Google continues to direct would-be jihadis to terrorist training videos and antiWestern rants posted on YouTube.

Meanwhile, as the Mail reveals today, Wikipedia hosts links to dozens of editions of Islamic State’s recruitment magazine – complete with exhortations to ‘kill infidels’ and a guide to causing maximum carnage in a hired van.

Can this be the same, smug Wikipedia – notorious purveyor of false information – which banned the Mail as a source, on the say-so of five administrators and just 53 of its 30 million editors?

By what perversion of the moral order can this tainted website seek to censor a thoroughly researched and regulated mainstream newspaper, while blithely publishing incitements to mass murder?

Bringing these recklessly irresponsible web titans within the law won’t guarantee our safety. But it must be an essential step to denying the killers the propaganda on which they feed and multiply.