G7 Internal Affairs: the network giants allied against terrorism
Rome - Intensifying cooperation between government authorities, the private industry world and civil society to counter the terrorist threat on the web more efficiently. This is one of the conclusions of the G7 Ministers of Interior meeting that was held in Ischia and attended by representatives from Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter, among others. "Terrorist organizations - reads the final joint press release - make a distorted use of the Internet to disseminate their ideology, recruit new active members, incite attacks, provide guidelines on methods of attack and raise funds to finance their activities". The meeting provided "a new drive further to improve the partnership with the industry world, developed as part of the EU Internet Forum since 2015 and reinforced by autonomous initiatives undertaken by the Internet industry, such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. Meeting participants agreed that Internet companies will continue to play a proactive role and guarantee a decisive action aimed at making their platforms more hostile to terrorism, and will support activities aimed at boosting the empowerment of partners of the civil society in developing alternative online narratives". Specifically, participants agreed that "we need to boost our joint efforts in four main operational areas, i.e.: 1) the use of automated technologies for the rapid detection and removal of terrorist contents, as well as to prevent their continued dissemination; 2) sharing the main practices and technologies to improve the resilience of smaller companies; 3) improving our knowledge base through research and development; 4) boosting the empowerment of partners of the civil society to develop alternative narratives". "The shared goal - the press release continues - is to develop forms of cooperation against terrorism on the Internet, based on the principles of mutual responsibility and trust, defended by the shared values of freedom, including freedom of expression. Participants agreed on the need to continue dialog and guarantee a follow-up also at expert level. To this end, they agreed on the need to allocate the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism a significant role, and to support smaller companies so they can develop the ability to combat the distorted use of their platforms for terrorist purposes. Lastly, the G7 ministry meeting welcomed the creation of a Global Search Network by the Global Internet Forum, with representatives of academic institutions and experts to develop jointly the analysis of the use of technologies by terrorists".