European Interest

EU plans to fight terrorists online

Flickr/European Parliament/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
In an interview with Germany's Welt newspaper, the EU's Security Commissioner Julian King said: “Despite the positive results from previous voluntary agreements, we have not seen enough progress, and to better protect our citizens, we must now take stronger action on terrorist content.”

The European Union’s Security Commission is reportedly hammering out a legislative proposal to require internet companies such as Facebook and Google to identify terrorist content on their platforms and delete it immediately. The proposal will be tabled in September.

In an interview with Germany’s Welt newspaper, the EU’s Security Commissioner Julian King said: “Despite the positive results from previous voluntary agreements, we have not seen enough progress, and to better protect our citizens, we must now take stronger action on terrorist content.”

The aim was “to create a clear, transparent framework and minimum requirements for every Internet platform that wants to offer its services to Europeans,” King told the newspaper.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW) Germany’s international broadcaster, the Commission answered its query on the subject. It wrote: “The work on the proposal is currently ongoing and we cannot pre-empt the details at this stage.”

Explore more