EU Tells Internet Firms to Delete Terrorist Content Within One Hour

The European Commission is telling cyberspace companies that online terrorist content needs to exist deleted inside 1 hour of it being reported.

The new "one-60 minutes dominion" is amidst a list of recommendations that the commission published on Thursday. The goal is to push the tech industry to not but fight illegal online content, only to do so in a timely and efficient way.

"Considering that terrorist content is particularly harmful in the starting time hours of its appearance online, companies should every bit a general dominion remove such content inside one hour of its flagging by law enforcement authorities and Europol," the commission said in its latest proposal.

Ideally, internet companies will voluntarily adopt the recommendations. Merely if necessary, the commission can also arts and crafts legislation to brand the recommendations into law, information technology said.

In addition, the committee called for the automated detection of terrorist content and the streamlining of other take down procedures.

"While several platforms have been removing more illegal content than ever before —showing that self-regulation can piece of work— we still demand to react faster confronting terrorist propaganda," said commission vice president Andrus Ansip in a statement.

European Commission

So far, Google and Facebook are remaining publicly upbeat on the European Commission's demands. But neither answered whether they can achieve the ane-hour rule.

"We're doing more than ever to prevent the abuse of our services, including hiring more people and investing in machine learning technology, and we're making real progress," Google said in an email.

"We share the goal of the European Commission to fight all forms of illegal content," Facebook said in its own argument.

Nevertheless, a European trade association that represents several net companies has suggested that the 1-60 minutes rule might effect in accidental censorship.

"Our sector accepts the urgency only needs to balance the responsibility to protect users while upholding fundamental rights," said the EDiMA, which counts Google, Facebook and Twitter, as amid its members. "A i-hour plough-effectually time in such cases could harm the effectiveness of service providers' take-downwardly systems rather than help."

The privacy group, European Digital Rights, also took issue with the ane-60 minutes rule. It'll afford little fourth dimension to "assess the illegality of the content" or whether deleting the data might take counter-productive effects, like interfering with criminal investigations, it said.

The recommendations from the commission too button the cyberspace industry to implement a "voluntary" censorship of the internet, equally opposed to developing an bodily policy, the grouping claimed.

"The European Commission'south short-cut, where information technology puts the focus on 'voluntary' measures by cyberspace companies, bypasses autonomous accountability," it added.