European leaders: tech companies must erase terrorist content within 2 hours

The leaders of the United Kingdom, Italy and France, on Wednesday called on tech companies to remove terrorist material from their platforms more quickly. They want such content to be erased within one to two hours.

That is according to a publication by the British government that shows what Prime Minister Theresa May will say during a meeting at the UN in New York. The event will be attended by companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter. The British Prime Minister wants to ask the companies to ‘develop technical solutions to prevent the uploading of terrorist material’.

She also aims for removal within a maximum of 2 hours, because during that period the spread of the material would be fastest. Currently, content would be online for too long. In doing so, May will point out that terrorist groups will adapt to the new policy by trying to spread material more quickly.

In her speech, May wants to refer to Twitter, which deleted about 300,000 accounts in the first half of this year. Of these, 75 percent were removed before a first tweet could be posted, the message said. Facebook’s use of artificial intelligence to delete messages is also reflected in May’s speech.

According to Politico, the 2-hour requirement goes far beyond the current 24-hour period requested by European countries. That would already be difficult for the tech companies. May’s words fit her earlier calls, asking companies to do more against online extremism.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft formed a working group in June called The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, which aims to formalize and strengthen existing partnerships between the companies.