20 July 2022
Tech Against Terrorism is pleased to publish our mitigation strategy for responding to terrorist operated websites (TOWs). To date, Tech Against Terrorism has found evidence of more than 200 websites being operated by terrorist and violent extremist groups, and a sample analysis of 33 of these sites found that they had 1.5 million monthly visitors. Tech Against Terrorism has led responses to TOWs by increasing our engagement with web infrastructure providers, and has to date facilitated the removal of 16 TOWs. Whilst we believe that this threat requires a global response led by democratic governments, we hope that our mitigation strategy is a good first step to addressing the threat of TOWs.
Tech Against Terrorism’s mitigation strategy consists of improving evidence-based reporting of suspected TOWs to infrastructure providers. Our strategy paper provides a reporting template to facilitate reporting to TOWs, and lays out suggested thresholds for website removal, an engagement prioritisation workflow and key underlying principles such as the rule of law, freedom of expression, and transparency.
Read the paper in full here
Later in the year, we aim to share guidelines for policymakers to inform a future global mitigation strategy. These guidelines will be based on extensive consultation with expert organisations and civil society groups, including at RightsCon 2022.