Last week, the tech sector’s largest counterterror group, the Global Internet
Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) convened a forum of industry stakehol


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Tech & Terrorism: Content Moderation Shortcomings Are Topic Of Tech-Led
Counterterrorism Initiative

(New York, N.Y.) – Last week, the tech sector’s largest counterterror group,
the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT)convened
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a forum of industry stakeholders to address ongoing extremist activity online
in the wake of protests and civil unrest. The virtual gathering of
stakeholders—which included representatives from 30 countries across
government, industry, academia, and civil society groups—comes despite tech’s
historical failures
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to deliver on its foundational commitment to establish clear and effective
industry standards for the removal of extremist content online.

The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) has consistently called on the GIFCT since
its establishment three years ago to fulfill its promises to adopt effective
industry standards and policies for responding to extremists’ and terrorists’
misuse of Internet platforms and services. The GIFCT’s disappointing track
record and inability to coordinate content moderation practices across
sites—such as in the case with the New Zealand terrorist attack—puts the
public’s safety at risk.

In 2017, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube created the GIFCT in
response to growing criticism from the public and lawmakers over tech’s
inability to halt the spread of extremist and terrorist material online. The
GIFCT’s stated mission is to leverage technology and share information and best
practices to help ensure consistent policies and practices across platforms and
sites. In effect, the GIFCT is supposed to facilitate cooperation between large
companies—which have more resources and manpower to moderate extremist content
on their platforms—and small tech firms.

One of the most infamous episodes of the GIFCT’s failures involved Brenton
Tarrant’s Christchurch, New Zealand attack video, which was livestreamed on
Facebook. On March 15, 2019, Tarrant killed 51 and wounded dozens of others in
shooting attacks on the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch. Despite
its intial takedown, Tarrant’s video was still reuploaded millions of times
across the entire Internet. On Facebook alone, it was reuploaded 1.5 million
times. The industry’s spectacular failure to stop the livestream of the
Christchurch mosque shootings and halt reuploads of the video makes it clear
that the time and resources spent on this coalition has amounted to very
little. One year after the shooting, CEP still was able toeasily locate the
video online
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, including on both Google Drive and Internet Archive.

 

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