Five Eyes partners increase pressure on social media companies
The minister responsible for New Zealand's intelligence agencies says governments around the globe are putting more
pressure on social media platforms to crack down on extremist activity happening online.
Andrew Little. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Andrew Little and fellow cabinet minister David Parker attended a Five Eyes security summit in London overnight, where the Christchurch Call received backing by summit partners.
Now the Five Eyes partners, which encompasses New Zealand, the UK, Canada, Australia and the United States, have
committed to work together to battle the problem.
"We had a pretty robust conversation with the social media companies there, the internet companies, to the point of
clearly laying out the expectations and also putting out a timetable on when we want them to respond," Mr Little said.
"So this conversation is sharpening up," he said. "It needs to because too many people are being harmed by what is
happening."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern initiated the Christchurch Call in Paris in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks in
which 51 people were killed.
The aim of the call is to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon were among the major technology companies that signed up to the call,
committing to taking steps to addressing the abuse of technology to spread terrorist content.
Seventeen countries and the European Commission also signed up to the call.
The action plan asks tech companies to review the operation of their algorithms that are driving users towards terrorist
content.