Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft launch initiative to remove extremist content

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft have joined hands in an initiative to remove extremist content on their platforms through information-sharing.

The companies would create a shared database of unique digital fingerprints – known as ''hashes'' – for images and videos that promoted terrorism, which could include terrorist recruitment videos or violent terrorist imagery or memes. When one company identified and removed such a piece of content, the others would be able to use the hash to identify and remove the same piece of content from their own network.

''We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online,'' said the companies in a shared statement.

Since the companies pursued different policies on what constituted terrorist content, they would start by sharing hashes of ''the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos'' as they were most likely to violate ''all of our respective companies'' content policies, they said.

According to Facebook, the precise details remained to be established, the approach,  though, echoed that adopted to tackle child sexual abuse imagery. The same companies used the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's PhotoDNA technology, developed by Microsoft, for identification of child sexual abuse. However, with PhotoDNA the images were categorised centrally by law enforcement and the technology companies were legally obliged to remove the content.

''Throughout this collaboration, we are committed to protecting our users' privacy and their ability to express themselves freely and safely on our platforms,'' the companies said in a statement, adding that they were discussing other ways ''to prevent the spread of terrorist content online while respecting human rights.''

The effort comes after intense scrutiny of technology companies and the role they played in unwittingly helping the recruitment efforts of groups like the Islamic State or in the spread of terrorist messages after mass shootings.