The Tech Against Terrorism Pledge

Principles committed to disrupting terrorism and violent extremism online while upholding human rights.

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The Tech Against Terrorism Pledge provides simple and accessible guidelines to help even the very smallest companies understand the importance of tackling terrorist exploitation in a manner that respects human rights and freedom of speech.

Platforms signing our pledge also take part in our mentorship process which leads to the awarding of the Tech Against Terrorism Trustmark .

Six Guiding Principles

The following principles inform our approach and underpin our framework for engaging with technology companies.

Background

The increased exploitation of information and communication technologies for terrorist and violent extremist purposes raises new challenges related to countering terrorism whilst respecting human rights, in particular with regards to freedom of expression and privacy. In the context of preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism, effective counter-measures and the protection of human rights are not conflicting goals, but complementary and mutually reinforcing.

Tech Against Terrorism has developed six guiding principles (the Tech Against Terrorism Pledge) which inform our approach and underpin our framework for engaging with the very smallest technology companies. These reinforce the importance of addressing challenging content and will support small tech companies in articulating their commitment to human rights and diversity in transparent, accountable, and collaborative ways. Our pledge complements the Global Network Initiative (GNI) Principles as it is specifically designed for smaller tech platforms.

The Tech Against Terrorism Pledge provides simple and accessible guidelines to help the very smallest companies understand the importance of tackling terrorist exploitation in a manner that respects human rights and freedom of speech. With our pledge, we want to ensure that small companies – who often do not have enough resources to familiarise themselves with the myriad of legal regimes and social contexts which may apply to their services – can contribute to a free internet. The pledge is a starting point from which companies can build their own appropriate systems and policies. Company commitments to the pledge should be understood as aspirations to be achieved as quickly and thoroughly as possible, consistent with available resources and scale.

Our pledge is based on the GNI Principles and internationally recognised norms as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“ICESCR”), UN Security Council resolutions and documents S/RES/1624 (2005), S/RES/2129 (2013), S/RES/2322 (2016),  S/RES/2354 (2017) and S/2017/375, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“UN Guiding Principles”). These constitute crucial normative precepts to help technology companies tackle exploitation of their services in a manner that promotes and protects human rights.

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Mentorship

A free and extensive programme enabling tech companies to future-proof their processes and policies to better combat terrorist use of their services.