British legislators blame Facebook,Twitter and Google for terrorism

LAHORE: The British Home Affairs Select Committee has categorically blamed the globally-used social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google for being responsible for the terrorist attacks in the West, asserting that these huge corporations have consciously failed to curb and combat the use of their sites for promoting terrorism.

In its 51-page publication titled “Radicalisation: The counter-narrative and identifying the tipping point,” the British parliamentary committee has viewed that young Muslims were being “radicalised” on these social media sites.

The Committee has opined: “Google, Facebook and Twitter, with their billion dollar incomes, were consciously failing to tackle this ever-rising threat and passing the buck by hiding behind their supranational legal status, despite knowing that their sites are being used by the instigators of terror.”

In its latest report, a renowned British technology and opinion website “The Register” has stated: “This blame was apportioned despite the committee also acknowledging that witnesses it had summoned agreed ‘that there does not appear to be any clear template for the factors which might lead to radicalisation’.” Regardless of the lack of a scientific standard for measuring this phenomenon of “radicalisation”, the use of counter-narratives is an increasingly popular and openly propagandistic method of addressing the violence of terrorist organisations, and one which the committee encouraged more of.”

“The Register,” which has daily circulation of 468,000 and nearly 9.5 million monthly in 2013, has quoted the UK parliamentary committee's chairman, Keith Vaz MP, as saying: “The Government must develop an effective counter-narrative to the slick and effective propaganda machine being run by Daesh. We should utilise the brightest talent of the world’s creative industries to counter terrorist propaganda with even more sophisticated anti-radicalising material. In the face of this new threat, we need a terrestrial Star Wars. We are engaged in a war for hearts and minds in the fight against terrorism. The modern front line is the internet. Its forums, message boards and social media platforms are the lifeblood of Daesh and other terrorist groups for their recruitment and financing and the spread of ideology.”

The website has gone on to write: “While reporting how impossible it was for Home Office officials to even find a definition of “extremist” which would not “immediately be challenged in court,” its recommendations fall short of suggesting a more thorough examination of the lexicon of the counter-terrorist strategy to refer to discrete and measurable objects and phenomena. MP Vaz also recommended that the press be responsible for promoting “counter-narratives”, and in particular “should refrain from using the term ‘so-called Islamic State,’ and should instead refer to ‘Daesh.’ We also recommend that they do not identify terrorists as Muslims, but as terrorists and followers of Daesh.” 

This idea of saturating the public sphere with information contrary to that of a public enemy was supported with the committee's warning: “Cyber-war, the use of the internet to promote radicalisation and terrorism, is one of the greatest threats that countries including the UK face.”

In response to this, the parliamentary recommended that the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) be upgraded “into a high-tech, state-of-the-art, round-the-clock, central Operational Hub which locates the perils early, moves quickly to block them and is able to instantly share the sensitive information with other security agencies.”

“The Register” has maintained: “The CTIRU was founded in 2010 to issue notices under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006 although according to a written answer by Lord Taylor of Holbeach in 2013, while the cops “can compel ISPs or social network sites to remove illegal extremist and radicalising material” in actuality these sites “co-operate willingly and CTIRU has never served any ISPs with a formal notice and taken-down request under Section three of Terrorism Act 2006.” It is supported on a supranational level by the EU Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) to which the UK second staff. The EU unit was established in July 2015, and in its first 16 weeks made over 500 referrals, of which 90 per cent were successfully removed.”

The British website has revealed that since being founded, the committee reported that CTIRU had secured the removal of more than 120,000 pieces of terrorist-related content including action to suspend the accounts of those propagating terrorist or extremist views and taking down of websites promoting this type of content.

It said the removal requests averaged 1,000 a week, of which around 100 items per day contained Syria-related content.

Meanwhile, another prestigious British newspaper “The Telegraph” has reported: “Facebook, Twitter and Google and are deliberately failing to stop terrorists from using their websites to promote terrorism because they believe it will "damage their brands", MPs have warned. MPs warned that social media websites are becoming the "vehicle of choice" for spreading terrorist propaganda but websites are policing billions of accounts and messages with just a "few hundred" employees. The Home Affairs select committee accused US technology giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter “of passing the buck” and said that they have become a “recruiting platform for terrorism.” They highlighted the fact that Twitter and Youtube refused to remove posts by Anjem Choudary, the hate preacher convicting of supporting IS last week, despite repeated requests by the police.”

“The Telegraph” has quoted another excerpt from the British parliamentary committee's report: “It is alarming that these companies have teams of only a few hundred employees to monitor networks of billions of accounts and that Twitter does not even proactively report extremist content to law enforcement agencies. These companies are hiding behind their supranational legal status to pass the parcel of responsibility and refusing to act responsibly in case they damage their brands.”

It is worth mentioning hat in June 2016, Germany's international broadcaster “Deutsche Welle or DW” had reported that the father of a victim of the "Islamic State" (IS) was suing the companies, claiming they empowered terror groups.

The “Deutsche Welle” had said: “Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old American exchange student, was among the 130 people who died in the terrorist attacks claimed by IS in Paris on November 13. Now her father is suing Facebook, Twitter and Google, the owner of Youtube, claiming the social media websites are complicit in his daughter's death. A suit filed by the lawyers of Reynaldo Gonzalez in the US District Court for Northern California claims the platforms have provided "material support" to groups like IS, allowing them to carry out attacks like the one in Paris. It goes on to argue that the three companies have for years "knowingly permitted" IS to use their sites as tools for recruitment, financing and propaganda.”

The suit claimed that without defendants Twitter, Facebook and Google (Youtube), the explosive growth of IS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible.

The suit stated that Twitter and Facebook had dismissed the merits of the case, while Google had declined to comment directly on it. All three companies said they had actively sought to remove content from their websites that was either deemed threatening or linked to a known terrorist organisation.