Campaign to Alert Tech Companies of New European Terrorist Content Online Regulation

Tech Against Terrorism Europe will lead efforts to drive both greater awareness of and compliance with the European Union’s new regulations to tackle terrorist content online.

The new European Union rule, which came into effect last year, obliges hosting service providers (HSPs) offering their services in the EU to take active steps to remove terrorist content on their platforms.

The regulation covers HSPs which store information offered by, and at the request of, a content provider and make this information available at the request of a content provider to a potentially unlimited number of persons. HSPs include social media platforms and services sharing video, image and audio files.

The providers have one hour to remove content once they receive a removal order from a competent national authority. These competent authorities include the judicial, administrative, or law enforcement bodies designated as such by EU Member States. The competent authorities designated by EU Member States are made public in an online register by the European Commission.

The new regulation applies to all companies who offer their services within the European Union, irrespective of whether they are headquartered in one of the member states. 

Our project has been launched because many tech platforms are unaware of the new obligations to tackle terrorist content which have been set by the European Union. An additional reason is the need for greater clarity amongst Member States themselves. In January 2023, the European Commission issued warning letters to 22 Member States for failing to comply with certain obligations in the Regulation concerning the dissemination of terrorist content online.

Tech Against Terrorism, an online safety organization backed by the United Nations, will lead a consortium to drive greater awareness of the EU’s terrorist content online (TCO) regulation through Tech Against Terrorism Europe (TATE). The initiative aims to help smaller tech companies to meet the requirements to counter the prevalence and spread of terrorist content on their platforms.

To drive awareness and best practice, Tech Against Terrorism Europe will combine unique industry-leading expertise from private-sector organisations with leading academics and institutions actively engaged in tackling terrorist content online.

The consortium of seven partners from six countries means that Tech Against Terrorism Europe will be able to deliver long-term disruption of terrorist content online on priority platforms, thereby providing a sustainable foundation for supporting smaller hosting service providers in countering terrorist content online.

Adam Hadley, Founder and Executive Director of Tech Against Terrorism said: "our experience shows that terrorists seek to exploit smaller platforms where content moderation is especially challenging due to limited resources. The EU regulation on terrorist content online now obliges tech companies of all sizes to focus on the critical issue of terrorist content and so we are delighted to be supporting the EU in ensuring that tech platforms have the capability and capacity to action terrorist content effectively."

The Tech Against Terrorism Europe project is funded by the European Union Internal Security Fund (ISFP-2021-AG-TCO-101080101). This project will support smaller hosting services providers (HSPs) in building their counterterrorism frameworks and with transparency reporting, as required by the EU’s terrorist content online (TCO) regulation and in Directive (EU) 2017/541.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Further information about the initiative at: https://tate.techagainstterrorism.org/the-tco
2. The Tech Against Terrorism Europe consortium consists of: Tech Against Terrorism, Saher Europe, Dublin City University, the JOS Project, Ghent University, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Swansea University.
3. Tech Against Terrorism encourages and enables companies to counter terrorist use of the internet whilst respecting human rights. Tech Against Terrorism is an independent public-private partnership initiated by the United Nations Security Council. https://techagainstterrorism.org