LONDON- Soon after the London Bridge attacks on Saturday, Facebook responded with a pledge to make anti-terrorism efforts through its platform. Prime Minister Theresa May, also in response to Saturday’s events, said that better Internet regulation is needed to prevent terrorists from planning attacks and marketing their ideology. Though Facebook has previously announced that it was taking steps to remove extremist content, the company has long been criticized for failing to police its website.
Tom DiChristopher with CNBC reports:
Facebook condemned Saturday’s deadly London Bridge attacks while pledging to “aggressively remove terrorist content” from its platform, as British Prime Minister Theresa May raised the specter of imposing new regulations to restrict the dissemination of extremist content.
On Sunday, May said Britain must work with allied democratic governments to tighten Internet regulation, in order to deny terrorists a tool for planning attacks and spreading extremism.
“We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed, yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide,” she said in a statement outside Downing Street.
May’s comments, which added new fuel to the debate about balancing free speech in an age of terrorism, were amplified by Facebook’s own response to the London attack.
In a statement, Simon Milner, director of policy at Facebook, said the social network giant wants to “provide a service where people feel safe. That means we do not allow groups or people that engage in terrorist activity, or posts that express support for terrorism. We want Facebook to be a hostile environment for terrorists.”
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