Europe wants to force tech companies to take terrorist material offline

The European Commission wants to come up with regulations to force tech companies to quickly take propaganda for terrorist groups offline. The Commission is dissatisfied with the speed at which tech companies are now taking the material offline.

It will be the first time that the European Commission makes rules that force tech companies to take such material offline, the Financial Times reports. The European Commissioner for Security, Julian King, tells the financial newspaper that the Commission has not seen enough progress with tech companies to take terrorist articles, photos and videos offline. “We are taking stronger action to better protect our citizens,” King said. Europe wants to be able to impose fines on those companies if they do not comply with the rules.

This includes the dissemination of terrorist propaganda on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Those companies already have a policy to take such articles, photos and videos offline. According to the European Commission, this is not going fast enough. The voluntary guidelines state that terrorist propaganda should be offline within an hour.

Even if the Commission proposes the new rules, they will not come into effect for the time being. First, the rules must obtain a majority in the European Parliament, after which the Member States still have to agree to the wording of the rules.