Online jihadist propaganda attracts more clicks in the UK than any other country in Europe, a report has found.
Tens of thousands of users access jihadist content from all over the globe. For the content analysed in the study, conducted by Policy Research, the UK is the 5th most frequent location from which the content was accessed (after Turkey, the US, Saudi Arabia and Iraq) – and the most frequent location in Europe.
Policy Exchange surveyed 2,001 adults in the UK, finding 74% of people supported new laws to criminalise the "persistent consumption" of extremist material online. In June this year, a forum was set up by some of the major social media companies in a bid to tackle extremist content on their platforms.
The report also revealed that Twitter accounts for 40% of the identifiable traffic to jihadist content online. Extremist content is also regularly accessed via Facebook, Google, YouTube and Telegram.
Telegram is an app available on both mobile and desktops, allowing free and safe messages for the sender. The app encrypts messages and gives you the ability to destroy them if unwanted.
6 Step Plan to Reduce This
The report also outlines a six-step plan of measures by which the government could put pressure on the leading tech companies to improve their performance:
- Ask the companies to revise and implement more stringent codes of conduct/terms of service that explicitly reject extremism
- Require the companies to work with and fund the efforts of an expanded Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU)
- Empower the forthcoming Commission for Countering Extremism to oversee content removal online
- Establish a new independent regulator of social media content, within the purview of Ofcom
- Put in place a system of financial penalties, administered by the independent regulator, to force company compliance
- Consider ways in which the existing legislation against the distribution of extremist material can be used to prosecute repeat offenders from the tech companies
What We Are Doing About This
In Warwickshire, we are delivering sessions to parents, carers and professionals around recognising the signs of online radicalisation and extremism.
To book, or for further information, please contact Alex Gloster at alexgloster@warwickshire.gov.uk
