Police to patrol social media sites as part of EU anti-terrorism plan
The EU has planned a ‘Clean IT’ initiative in a bid to patrol internet firms, including Twitter and Facebook, for ‘extremist material’ supporting terrorism.
The leaked documents detailing the plans were first reported by the Telegraph and could directly affect internet firms as new legislation put in place to help monitor suspicious behaviour would require firms to offer filtering software as a condition of EU trade.
The project has received a 400,000 euro grant and is being led by Dutch counter-terrorism officials, who are preparing ‘semi automated detection’ systems and buttons to enable users to report suspicious online activity.
The monitoring and flagging systems would be linked to law enforcement agencies, with the data then shared across Europe.
The discouragement of online anonymity, under the label ‘real identity policies’, is one of the key measures of the initiative. Social media sites such as Twitter, which has been widely reported to advocate the use of anonymity as part of free online speech, could be most affected by this proposal.
The implementation discussions are already underway, with the ‘Clean IT’ initiative believed to be launched as early as the next two years.