ICT4Peace in association with Chatham House organised on 12 July 2017 a panel discussion on “Technology Against Terrorism – How to Respond to the Exploitation of the Internet” with distinguished representatives of Facebook, Twitter, Google, JustPaste.it and UN CTED, New York.

While larger technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft have developed an ’emerging normative framework’ based on self-regulation, smaller technology companies often do not have the capacity to effectively anticipate, mitigate and disrupt the exploitation of their services. Even the smallest app is vulnerable to the spread of violent extremism and with this comes significant reputational and operational risk.

The panel of distinguished speakers discussed the threat of the spread of extremism via technology. They discussed how smaller tech companies can build practical tools and improve operational processes to monitor and remove extremist content. What has been the response from government, civil society and technology companies following the recent terror attacks in the UK? And what are the major challenges faced by tech companies when trying to regulate and remove online content?

This event was organised to raise awareness of the Tech Against Terrorism project (embed www.techagainst.terroorism.org created by both the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UN CTED) and the ICT4Peace Foundation, Switzerland (www.ict4peace.org).

This event was livestreamed and a recording will be made available shortly.

The panel was chaired by ICT4Peace’s Adam Hadley and had the following distinguished participants:

  • Nick Pickles, Head of Public Policy and Government, UK & Israel, Twitter
  • Erin Saltman, Policy Manager, EMEA Counter-Terrorism and CVE, Facebook
  • David Scharia, Director, Chief of Branch at CTED, United Nations Security Council
  • Ankur Vora, Public Policy Analyst, Google
  • Mariusz Zurawek, Owner, JustPaste.it
  • Chair: Adam Hadley, Project Director, ICT4Peace

Adam Hadleys’s introductory remarks can be found here.

For further information please contact Adam Hadley, Project Director, ICT4Peace (adamhadley@ict4peace.org).