{"id":35079,"date":"2017-06-19T18:33:13","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T16:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=35079"},"modified":"2019-04-26T15:23:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T13:23:15","slug":"united-kingdom-france-push-tech-firms-action-extremist-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2017\/06\/united-kingdom-france-push-tech-firms-action-extremist-content\/","title":{"rendered":"United Kingdom, France Push Tech Firms to Action on Extremist Content"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron deliver a joint declaration. Photo credit: Pr\u00e9sidence de la R\u00e9publique fran\u00e7aise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With her recent comments<\/a> on tackling extremism online, Prime Minister Theresa May has not earned many\u00a0fans among\u00a0the tech industry\u00a0in\u00a0the UK or\u00a0internationally. Nevertheless, she and many other British political leaders are sticking to an\u00a0aggressive approach. On a trip to France earlier this month, May and her new counterpart Emmanuel Macron discussed<\/a> how to introduce legal liability for tech companies who encourage or fail to crack down on extremist content. It is expected\u00a0that this could include fines or other sanctions, though other methods are still on the table.<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom and France have a long history of working together on anti-terror projects, and their shared status\u00a0as targets for extremism has strengthened that bond. As attacks have increased in their number and severity (four in<\/a> Britain in the last three\u00a0months alone, including the most recent one in Finsbury), the two nations have come together to fight back against extremism on all fronts. Whereas their focus has previously been on a boots-on-the-ground policy, they are increasingly focusing their attention on how attackers have been indoctrinated. In a number of cases, terror suspects and other extremists\u00a0are first radicalized online.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, the basic plan (still in its infancy, remember) is to force social media and tech companies to take an active role in cracking down on extremist content and propaganda meant to\u00a0recruit impressionable youth. This will be done via legal liability for tech companies who do not succeed in removing such content. There has been much talk about \u2018working with\u2019 tech companies to do this, but the fact of the matter is that there is no \u2018working with\u2019 involved \u2013 the companies do not have a choice. It is a \u2018with us or against us\u2019 policy.<\/p>\n

How well this will work remains to be seen, but what does it mean for tech companies on both sides of the pond?<\/p>\n

To get an idea of how this mutual project may shape up for tech companies in the UK or France, it helps to take a look at Germany. Berlin\u00a0is further ahead in implementing\u00a0a similar solution, with fines of up to 50 million Euros<\/a> for companies who fail to remove such extremist content quickly enough \u00a0\u2013 between 24 hours and 7 days after it is brought to their attention, depending upon the severity.<\/p>\n

These types of\u00a0penalties are not just focused on terrorism or extremist content, either. Content which includes child abuse, animal abuse or other \u2018unacceptable\u2019 content are\u00a0also central to the enforcement debate.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting to note is that tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and others already have tools in place to remove such content. Most of them are turning to artificial intelligence to make moderation faster, with methods similar to data mining used to sift quickly through user-generated reports of explicit, illegal, shocking, or extreme content.<\/p>\n

As a result, there has been push back to Theresa\u00a0May’s\u00a0project from both inside and outside the industry. One of the major factors is that May has been very vocal about \u2018policing the internet\u2019 and is strongly\u00a0opposed to net neutrality. Those ideas are likely driven by a perception of\u00a0the internet as\u00a0a lawless swamp that needs a\u00a0shining light cast on\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

In truth, this is not always the case. Many civil liberties and net neutrality activists are very unhappy with the increasing level of government interference online.<\/p>\n

There is also evidence that the most recent attacks have hardly\u00a0needed the internet at all, and were mainly carried out by recruitment cells also active within the host countries as well as in training camps abroad. Salman Abedi, who perpetrated the bombing on Ariana Grande’s May concert in Manchester, travelled to Libya<\/a>\u00a0just before carrying out his\u00a0attack on concertgoers. Questioning the efficacy of heightened surveillance, there are growing claims\u00a0that the these measures are just a foot in the door for government agencies to increase their policing presence online — using the online giants as unwilling accomplices.<\/p>\n

Whatever the truth, two powerful European leaders\u00a0coming together to force tech companies to tackle extremism in the online sphere is sure to have a profound effect. Between them, May and Macron have the power to ensure\u00a0compliance\u00a0is closely linked to what matters most to these companies \u2013 profits. Though many companies are making progress on their own, such as Facebook hiring 3,000 more moderators to pore through and pass judgement on such content, the collaboration between the UK and France will\u00a0steer private companies and corporations towards a far more active stance in online policing of user-generated content.\u00a0For better or for worse, it looks like this will be the new normal.<\/p>\n

The views expressed in this article represent\u00a0the author’s personal\u00a0opinions and do not reflect\u00a0the views of\u00a0RudeBaguette.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With her recent comments on tackling extremism online, Prime Minister Theresa May has not earned many\u00a0fans among\u00a0the tech industry\u00a0in\u00a0the UK or\u00a0internationally. Nevertheless, she and many other British political leaders are sticking to an\u00a0aggressive approach. On a trip to France earlier this month, May and her new counterpart Emmanuel Macron discussed how to introduce legal liability<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":35099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[7921,7920],"class_list":["post-35079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-finance","tag-emmanuel-macron-en-2","tag-facebook-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}