Theresa May Calls for Strong Partnerships Online in Response to Recent Terror Attacks

In the wake of a major event, politicians tend to point fingers in the direction of areas where they believe stand for some revamping. Since four terror attacks have occurred in the UK beginning with the Manchester Bombing, and most recently the London Bridge attack this weekend, Prime Minister Theresa May is pointing her finger at social media.

Those in the government believe that the internet is not well regulated, and has simply become a safe space for extremist movements to breed and spread with no repercussions. She said in her statement released today, “We need to work with allied, democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremism and terrorist planning.”

Although the big networks of the internet do regulate activity, they say that it has not been enough, and the European Union may begin to crack down on these big companies because they have fallen short of their standards of removing hate speech. YouTube has only been able to remove it 42.6% of the time, Twitter only 39% and Facebook has been the best, but still not good enough, at 57.9% of the cases being caught.

Facebook, however, is adamant that they are addressing this issue. They say that they use a “combination of technology and human review” to discover these posts as soon as possible. Once the posts are discovered they notify law enforcement almost immediately.

They do agree with May though that they need stronger connections to permanently address this issue, “Online extremism can only be tackled with strong partnerships. We have long collaborated with policymakers, civil society, and others in the tech industry, and we are committed to continuing this important work together.” Facebook has come under more fire than other companies recently as their “Live” feature has been abused by these militant groups to live stream their brutal attacks.

Facebook Logo. Featured Image via Wikimedia.

No company wants to be associated as a haven for terrorism, so it is not only in Facebook’s best interest as a public figure to address these concerns, but it is also a good move for them fiscally. They make it easy to like different pages so that they can make money from companies who thrive on these online profiles, but they will lose many investors if their name is linked to more terrorist activity.

Furthermore, May and other leaders have also targeted encrypted messaging apps, like WhatsApp, because they provide an easy way to plan various attacks without risk of being caught. This may become less critical as time passes though because these apps can still be tracked and decrypted, but if they take this method away they will surely find another way to organize their attacks that may not be found for some time.

Ultimately, this brings up one overarching question that affects everyone who uses the internet. That is the question of free speech. By working with Facebook, they will have access to all our posts on a previously unregulated site. If they are able to see all that we are doing, what happens to our privacy? This question has already been a hot topic in recent years, but by wanting to regulate one of the truly free areas of speech at our disposal, what future implications will this have?