ICT4Peace, in cooperation with UN CTED will organise a panel discussion at Chatham House in London on 12 July 2017 on how to respond to the exploitation of the internet by terrorists and violent extremists?
While the larger technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft have developed an “emerging normative framework” based on a self-regulation, smaller technology companies often do not have the capacity or understanding to effectively anticipate, mitigate, and disrupt the exploitation of their services. Even the smallest app is vulnerable and with this comes huge reputational and operational risk for small business, often at critical moments of their growth.
This is currently a headline issue. In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Westminster, Manchester and on London Bridge, political pressure is rising for technology firms to explain more about the steps they are taking to combat terrorism and extremism on their platforms. The joint Taormina statement from the May 2017 G7 summit in Sicily called for communication providers and social media firms “to substantially increase their efforts to address terrorist content”.
Tech Against Terrorism (www.techagainstterrorism.org) is joint project of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate and the ICT4Peace Foundation. It is directly mandated by the UN Security Council to engage with startups to help build operational capacity and to inform the debate. As part of this project we are working with the industry-led counter-terrorism industry forum and together with the leading tech companies our focus in 2017 is on building practical tools to help startups develop appropriate mechanisms for counter-terrorism while ensuring transparency and respect for human rights. Our capacity-building assistance encompasses data science and algorithm support, operational insight, takedown processes and terms of service.
This event will feature a panel of some of the industry partners the Tech Against Terrorism initiative is working with, from organisations large and small. It will consider the challenges involved and the context of the issue, as well as what is being done and what other approaches could be looked at.
Agenda
- The challenge and the context
- The response so far from government and startups
- Human rights and perspectives of civil society
- The way forward: from antagonism to cooperation?
(Speakers to be confirmed)
Download as PDF here.