The G7 has thrown its support behind the technology alliance that has set its sights on detecting, policing, and stopping blatant propaganda on the web. The Group of Seven, representing seven of the most industrialized nations in the world, stated Friday that the alliance would play a ‘major role’ in combating extremism on the internet.
During a summit meeting in Italy, the G7 invited representatives from Microsoft (NASDAQ:$MSFT), Google (NASDAQ:$GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:$FB), and Twitter (NYSE:$TWTR) on Friday. The theme of the meeting was fighting terrorism, and the ministers urged the industry as a whole to do more.
The statement read, “Internet companies will continue to take a proactive role and ensure decisive action in making their platforms more hostile to terrorism, and will support actions aimed at empowering civil society partners in the development of alternative narratives online.”
This would represent a wholly new direction for internet companies, however, who have historically viewed themselves as neutral and have hosted content from people from all backgrounds. Most companies have been incredibly cautious when censoring user content. Recent use of social media to recruit jihadis, share fake news, incite extremism, and radicalize young people has caused governments to pressure the internet platforms to be more proactive in policing content.
In June, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (Privately-Traded), and Google created the Global Internet Forum to Combat Terrorism, which was boosted British Prime Minister Theresa May applauded the alliance in a UN General Assembly speech. May also urged companies to develop new technology that could quickly identify and remove terrorist content, a demand that the alliance is committed to delivering on.
Marco Minniti, Italian Interior Minister said that the relationship between the major IPs and the world governments represented ‘a great alliance’. He also stressed that the internet remains an important tool of free speech, but warned: “at the same time, we all together have agreed that Al Qaida and the Islamic state are enemies of our freedoms.”
Some ministers felt that more needed to be done, however.
Acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, said, “Our enemies are moving at the speed of a tweet, so we have to counter them just as quickly.”
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