EU cracks down on social media terror content by issuing fines

The European Union has now told social media sites to remove all content that could be terror related, or receive a hefty fine. This comes as a bid to thwart the radicalisation of minors, teens and other vulnerable people. Such posts spark outrage, and it is a wonder as to why they have not been taken down already. When this issue was first addressed, social media companies fought back with facts and figures of exactly how much content is uploaded daily. This put EU officials in an awkward position, but they are finally saying that enough is enough, and are demanding more be done to combat these posts, and these people from accessing the social media sites.

If social media firms choose not to comply with these new rules and regulations, they could receive a penalty of up to 4% of their overall global revenue. This news comes straight from the European commission, who are not here to dance around the issue anymore. Research shows Facebook and Twitter are the two social media giants that will be most affected by this law being implemented. The British security commissioner is reporting that there is a shift in the specific nature of actual terror attacks. The research shows that increasing amounts of people were being radicalised online, and that the material people are consuming on the internet had played a huge role in every EU terror attack in the last year and a half.

Julian King, the British security commissioner said in an interview that: “We have got a problem with content; it is not an entirely new problem, we are not starting from scratch, we have agreed to do some voluntary stuff, and we got some good progress – but not enough.” He continued: “And the shift in the nature of the attacks – so we have got more locals self-radicalised – just underlines again the importance of tackling all the different ways in which people become radicalised.”. The French security ambassador had a very similar viewpoint: “Every attack over the last 18 months or two years or so has got an online dimension. Either inciting or in some cases instructing, providing instruction, or glorifying.”.

He continued by saying “So this online radicalisation circle is one that we want to break. That is why we are going to take for the first time the step of proposing legislation that puts obligations directly on the platforms. This is the stuff that needs to be done, and it will be all platforms in Europe, wherever they are based. We need to do it because we just haven’t gone far enough, fast enough, with enough platforms.”. Everyone rightly feels as thought this step, regardless of it being difficult to monitor, is the right way forward. Something is better than nothing at this point and we needed this change now, as terrorists in the online world were practically running wild.

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