Facebook, Twitter and Google Are A 'recruiting platform for terrorism''
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", UK 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.
Recently sentenced British Islamist @anjemchoudary on Twitter
The UK’s 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 Isil, despite repeated requests by the police.
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the committee, said: "Huge corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter, with their billion-dollar incomes, are consciously failing to tackle this 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.
"The companies' failure to tackle this threat has left some parts of the internet ungoverned, unregulated and lawless."
The committee's report states: "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.
"If they continue to fail to tackle this issue and allow their platforms to become the ‘Wild West’ of the internet, then it will erode their reputation as responsible operators."
The report says that internet companies should be required to co-operate with Britain's counter-extremism police and shut down accounts immediately.
It calls on the companies to publish quarterly statistics showing how many sites they have taken down. It also recommended that a specialist police unit set up to target terror-related material online is upgraded into a round-the-clock "central hub".
Mr Vaz added: "The Government must develop an effective counter-narrative to the slick and effective propaganda machine being run by Daesh."
Ben Wallace, the security minister, said that internet companies must "play their part" in fighting extremism.
He said: "Extremism is not something that can be defeated by Government and law enforcement alone, it is vital that everyone plays their part.
"We are working closely with internet companies and want to see a swifter, more automated approach to the identification and removal of content from social media sites, not just in the UK but across the world. " Twitter said last week that it has suspended 235,000 accounts for promoting terrorism in the past six months.
It said: " As noted by numerous third parties, our efforts continue to drive meaningful results, including a significant shift in this type of activity off of Twitter."
Simon Milner, director of policy at Facebook UK, said: "Terrorists and the support of terrorist activity are not allowed on Facebook and we deal swiftly and robustly with reports of terrorism-related content.
"In the rare instances that we identify accounts or material as terrorist, we'll also look for and remove relevant associated accounts and content."
The report also warned that extremists are able to leave the country while on bail despite being barred from travelling because police have failed to confiscate their passports. Siddhartha Dhar, an Isil extremist, fled the UK within days of being released on bail.
"It seemed incredible to us that the only follow-up action for failure to comply was a polite reminder letter from the police," the report says.
Richard Walton, the former head of Scotland Yard's counter terrorism command, today warns that existing British laws would not prevent preachers who followed Choudary's example and acting as "radicalisers".
Writing in The Daily Telegraph he says Choudary's conviction could even help fellow radicals avoid conviction in future by showing them how to remain within the law while promoting their ideology, Mr Walton suggests.
