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Home Secretary Theresa May calls for new powers to counter spread of extremist material on social media

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By John Glenday, Reporter

February 19, 2015 | 2 min read

Home Secretary Theresa May has used a platform at a US terrorism conference convened by Barack Obama to call for enhanced powers to combat the spread of a ‘warped narrative’ of terrorism on social media sites.

The international gathering comes in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris in which a dozen people were slain in cold blood by Islamist extremists and, more recently, the killing of two people in Denmark by another terrorist.

Pointing the finger at social media channels and their ability to disseminate information to a wide group of people May said: “Terrorists and extremists use a range of methods, including social media, to promote their twisted ideology and we need to be equally able to counter and defeat their warped narrative. Coming together at events such as this can only help inform our ongoing work, including the development of our new extremism strategy to confront and defeat extremism in all its forms.”

Facebook has previously come in for criticism from the prime minister after it was revealed in the aftermath of the murder of fusilier Lee Rigby in London that his attacker had previously posted inflammatory messages via the site, including a ‘graphic’ threat to murder a soldier five months before he acted out the plan.

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