White House asks tech companies for help with online counterterrorism measures
Much like it’s done with child pornography, the technology industry could help the federal government blunt the spread of online terrorist communications, the White House maintains.
According to The Hill, government officials met with leading technology groups on Friday in San Jose. The meeting was to ask technology groups for help to detect patterns of the Islamic State group’s social media use, and to fight extremist messages.
“I do have a lot of confidence that those companies that are run by patriotic Americans are not interested in seeing their tools or their technology used by terrorists to harm innocent Americans,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “That’s certainly not what they were designed for.”
Earnest told The Hill that while the White House does not expect any immediate breakthrough agreements for anti-terror partnerships to result from this meeting, “we have been able to work effectively with the tech community” to shut down online traffickers of child pornography.
Also being discussed is legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.), which would require Internet companies to notify the government if they have direct knowledge of terrorist activity on their platforms. Similar laws exist for child pornography.
The problem with that, say critics, is that “terrorist activity” may be harder to define than child pornography. Also, according to the Hill, most social media and tech companies already have policies to remove terror-related content when they are alerted to its presence.
The White House sent out a press release on Friday to serve as an update on counterterrorism measures the government is taking. The Department of Homeland Security will be leading a new Countering Violent Extremism Task Force in partnership with the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Counterterrorism Center. The State Department has also announced the creation of a Global Engagement Center to counter extremist messages abroad.
