PerspectiveTech Fight against Online Extremism Gets Overhaul
Facebook fulfilled a long-standing demand from policymakers and advocacy groups this week when Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that a coalition of the country’s most powerful tech corporations will be formalizing its counterterrorism efforts into an independent organization with a dedicated staff. As the companies face ramped-up criticism from regulators and lawmakers worldwide, they are expanding the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), which they originally formed to deal with Islamic terrorism online in 2017. The founding members were Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft.
Facebook fulfilled a long-standing demand from policymakers and advocacy groups this week when Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that a coalition of the country’s most powerful tech corporations will be formalizing its counterterrorism efforts into an independent organization with a dedicated staff.
Emily Birnbaum writes in The Hill that in a public appearance alongside New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday, Sandberg announced that Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter will help form an organization tasked with confronting the deluge of violent and extremist content proliferating across their platforms.
The announcement comes months after the Christchurch, New Zealand, mass shooting, which reignited governmental and public scrutiny of how tech companies handle violent and white supremacist content.
The suspect in the Christchurch shootings livestreamed the initial attack, leaving the tech companies scrambling to remove the disturbing 17-minute video that showed worshippers being gunned down. The suspect purportedly posted a racist manifesto online before the shootings; since then, two more alleged white supremacist shooters have been tied to radical online footprints.
Birnbaum writes that now, as the companies face ramped-up criticism from regulators and lawmakers worldwide, they are expanding the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), which they originally formed to deal with Islamic terrorism online in 2017. The founding members were Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft.
