In an announcement on Tuesday, Facebook said it intends to make radical changes to its policy regarding terrorist and extremist content on platform .
These changes follow the Christchurch Call, which took place in May. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in collaboration with 17 other governments and eight technology companies, including Facebook, discussed and jointly agreed to work together and take drastic action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, following the horrific attack in Christchurch.
Facebook's policy changes include an updated definition of what constitutes a terrorist organization, improved use of technology to identify harmful content, and an expansion of the content review process on its platform.
Facebook said the new definition of terrorist organizations does not just focus on organizations that commit violent acts, but also those that act with “intent to coerce, intimidate, and/or influence a civilian population, a government , or an international organization.”
This means, according to Facebook, that content that attempts to promote violence, especially when it is directed at citizens with the intention of coercing them to do something or intimidating them, will be banned from the platform.
Additionally, AI techniques previously used by Facebook to ban content from terrorist groups, such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, will be expanded and applied to a broader range of dangerous organizations.
Since March, Facebook has banned over 200 organizations that discriminate based on color from its platform, or that have racist and nationalist content.
The social network added a feature to its search function so that when users in the United States search for such content, they are redirected to resources that help people leave hate groups. This feature has been expanded to two other countries as part of recent policy changes.
People residing in Australia and Indonesia searching for groups related to hate and extremism are redirected to EXIT Australia and ruangobrol.id respectively.
Facebook's content review teams will also begin to identify content originating from people and organizations that advocate for or engage in violent actions, rather than focusing solely on counterterrorism efforts.
Ardern expressed her satisfaction with the changes Facebook made to its policy.
Governments around the world are considering how to strengthen their rules on what content is allowed on online platforms. G20 countries met in July to urge online platforms to meet citizens’ expectations to prevent terrorism and violent extremism that foster terrorist content.
