Companies, nations sign pact to fight cybercrime, attacks
PARIS — Fifty nations and over 150 tech companies pledged Monday to do more to fight criminal activity on the internet, including interference in elections and hate speech.
Hundreds of companies, nonprofit groups and governments — including France and the U.S., but not China or Russia — have signed the “Paris call for trust and security in cyberspace,” which came about under the auspices of President Emmanuel Macron, French officials said.
The tech pledge is a reaction to cyberwars that, over the past years, disrupted elections in places like the U.S. and France and hobbled businesses through attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya. It builds on previous accords like the one signed in April by the tech industry, but reaches beyond just companies or governments for a broader alliance.
“Since 2016, we’ve seen attacks by some countries undermining democracies,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, told reporters in Paris. Microsoft spotted cyberassault attempts on all major candidates during the French elections last year and, in the U.S., some attacks were successful during the 2016 elections, he said.
“It’s important that the world’s democracies come together,” Smith said. “Almost never does the world come together in a way that is global — there are stepping stones to a global consensus. It’s especially important that the likeminded countries come together.”
Macron had pushed for the initiative, whose unveiling comes a day after dozens of world leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday for the centenary of the end of World War I.
Speaking at the Internet Governance Forum organized at the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Macron said it’s urgent to better regulate the internet.
The French leader also said that Facebook had accepted to let a team of French officials observe the way it monitors and removes hate speech content.
It will happen in the early part of next year, and the goal is to “elaborate precise, concrete joint proposals about the fight against hate speech and offensive content,” Macron said.