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The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea, CTED, and ICT4Peace launch next phase of Tech against terrorism

BMUSONI — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 17:03:00 +0000

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As technology develops, terrorists continue to adapt their strategies to exploit information and communications technologies (ICTs) to incite, recruit, fund, and plan terrorist acts. The Security Council recognizes this threat to both online and offline space and calls upon Member States to adopt measures to prevent and address it. As part of these efforts, on 29 November 2017 at the United Nations in New York, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations, along with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), and Swiss non-governmental organization ICT4Peace, hosted an event to launch the next phase of Tech against Terrorism, a knowledge-sharing platform (KSP).

Tech against Terrorism, a joint project between CTED and ICT4Peace, is a public-private partnership that brings together ICT industry leaders – e.g. Facebook, Google, Kaspersky Lab, Microsoft, Telefonica, and Twitter – with startups, governments, and academia to tackle terrorist exploitation of the Internet. The knowledge-sharing platform establishes a sustainable mechanism to coordinate governments with the tech sector, bridges the knowledge-sharing capabilities between startups and ICT industry leaders, and encourages transparency and self-regulation.

The launch enabled major tech companies to reiterate the importance of the initiative, while smaller firms and startups highlighted challenges they face, from human to financial or management-related resources. H.E. Ambassador Cho Tae-yul of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea, H.E. Ambassador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi of the Permanent Mission of Spain, and H. E. Oliver Zehnder of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland, participated in the launch and each spoke of the necessity of continued efforts in addressing the growing threat of terrorists abusing ICTs. The Executive Director of CTED, Assistant Secretary-General Ms. Michèle Coninsx, emphasized the invaluable relationships developing through Tech against Terrorism among civil society, startup tech companies, established tech platforms, and the wider private sector.

Documents

Agenda for the event

Presentation by Miguel Sánchez SV, Global Chief Security Officer, Telefonica

Presentation by Jeff Collins, Vice President, After School

Webcast

The webcast recording of the event can be accessed here

Photos

More photos from the event are available here

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CTED-initiated process results in High-Level meeting on preventing terrorist use of the Internet

BMUSONI — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 14:07:00 +0000

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On 20 September 2017, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom co-hosted a high-level United Nations meeting on Preventing terrorist use of the Internet. President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK, and Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Google Kent Walker opened the meeting, which was held on the margins of the 72nd UN General Assembly. Linked to efforts initiated by the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) with the industry to prevent and counter terrorism online, this was the first time that world leaders and technology executives at this level addressed the United Nations on the issue.

The high-level meeting sought to encourage governments and civil society groups to engage with the Global Internet Forum for Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), which Mr. Walker represented on the panel of speakers. When GIFCT was launched by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube on 26 June 2017, the then-Executive Director of CTED welcomed the initiative as elevating “our existing private-public partnership with these and other companies.” The high-level meeting recognized GIFCT as a global focal point in the digital battlespace against terrorists and commended its work in shaping future action needed to address this issue.

UK Prime Minister May commended the attendance at the event as evidence of the commitment held by governments, companies, and civil society in collaborating to protect citizens against the use of the Internet by terrorists to spread their ideology. Many of the speakers reiterated the importance of a global response to protect citizens from incitement through awareness and continued efforts in countering narratives.

According to Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management and the Head of Counter-terrorism at Facebook, GIFCT focuses participating companies’ efforts in a number of areas: Improving the means for detecting terrorist content, including through technical solutions like she Shared Industry Hash Database; commissioning research in this area; and sharing knowledge with counter-terrorism experts. “And through a joint partnership [with UN CTED and the ICT4Peace Initiative “Tech against terrorism”], we’ll work with smaller companies on all of the above.”

Ms. Bickert also emphasized that companies like Facebook and Google recognize the importance in helping people challenge extremist narratives in addition to removing content. The United States Department of Homeland Security representative Claire Grady concluded that “we cannot surrender the digital battlespace to violent extremists.”

The full webcast (in English) of the meeting can be found here.

The joint declaration by the three Heads of State/Government (in French) is available here.

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The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) welcomes major private sector initiative to counter terrorism online

BMUSONI — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 18:11:00 +0000

Today 26 June 2017, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube announced the formation of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, an initiative to make their hosted consumer services hostile to terrorists and violent extremists.

“I welcome this major initiative, which elevates our existing private-public partnership with these and other companies,” said United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Jean-Paul Laborde, Executive Director of the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). CTED leads ‘Tech Against Terrorism’ (www.techagainstterrorism.org) together with the foundation ICT4Peace.

“Terrorism is a global threat that can only be defeated by sustained, joint efforts. The United Nations remains committed to addressing the scourge of terrorism, and we look forward to remaining a key partner to the private sector. The Security Council remains seized of this and other issues that represent serious threats to international peace and security, and its adoption last month of resolution 2354 (2017) provides a comprehensive international framework to counter terrorist narratives,” Mr. Laborde added.

Underlining that the spread of terrorism and violent extremism is a pressing global problem and a critical challenge, these companies have already developed policies and removal practices that enable them to take a hard line against terrorist or violent extremist content on their hosted consumer services. By working together, and through the sharing of the best technological and operational elements of their individual efforts, they believe they can have a greater impact on the threat of terrorist content online.

The new forum builds on initiatives including the EU Internet Forum and the Shared Industry Hash Database; discussions with the UK and other governments; and the conclusions of the recent G7 and European Council meetings. It will formalise and structure existing and future areas of collaboration between these companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups, and academics, government, as well as supranational bodies such as the EU and the UN.

The scope of the work will evolve over time as needs shift in responding to the ever-evolving terrorist and extremist tactics. Initially, the work will focus on:

Technological solutions: these companies will work together to refine and improve existing joint technical work, such as the Shared Industry Hash Database; exchange best practices as they develop and implement new content detection and classification techniques using machine learning; and define standard transparency reporting methods for terrorist content removals.
Research: they will commission research to inform their counter-speech efforts and guide future technical and policy decisions around the removal of terrorist content.
Knowledge-sharing: these companies will work with counter-terrorism experts including governments, civil society groups, academics, as well as other companies to engage in shared learning about terrorism. And through a joint partnership specifically with UN CTED and the ICT4Peace Initiative (techagainstterrorism.org), implementing Security Council resolution 2354 (2017), they are establishing a broad knowledge-sharing network to:
1. Engage with smaller companies: they will help smaller companies develop the technology and processes necessary to tackle terrorist and extremist content online.
2. Develop best practices: these companies already partner with organizations such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies , Anti-Defamation League and the Global Network Initiative to identify how best to counter extremism and online hate, while respecting freedom of expression and privacy. They can socialise these best practices, and develop additional shared learnings on topics such as community guideline development, and policy enforcement.
3. Counterspeech: all of these companies have robust counterspeech initiatives in place (e.g., YouTube’s Creators for Change, Jigsaw’sRedirect Method, Facebook’s P2P and OCCI, Microsoft’s partnership with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue for counter-narratives on Bing, and Twitter’s global NGO training programme). The forum they have now established allows them to learn from and contribute to one another’s counterspeech efforts, and discuss how to further empower and train civil society organisations and individuals who may be engaged in similar work and support ongoing efforts, such as the Civil society empowerment project (CSEP).

These companies will be hosting a series of learning workshops in partnership with UN CTED/ICT4Peace in Silicon Valley and around the world to drive these areas of collaboration.

Further information on all of the above initiatives will be shared in due course.

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