The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism held an event this morning, 6 December 2017, at Google’s Brussels’ offices.
The event featured representatives from GIFCT founder companies, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter, along with the EU Commission, EUROPOL, ICT4Peace, CDT, and others.
The first panel discussion and Q&A included stakeholders from agencies engaged in the fight against online terrorist propaganda.
VOX-Pol coordinator, Prof. Maura Conway, participated in the second panel discussion and Q&A, which focused on the perspective of stakeholders from academia, industry, and civil society.
The other panelists were Lenard Koschwitz, Director for European Affairs at Allied for Startups, Omar Ramadan, Director of EU RAN Center of Excellence, and Jens Jeppesen, Director for European Affairs at the Center for Democracy & Technology. The panel was moderated by John Frank, VP EU Government Affairs, Microsoft.
Issues raised in the panel discussion included the online activity of both IS and the extreme right, content takedown and its impact on freedom of expression, and the difficulties and opportunities of engaging in research on extremism, terrorism, and the Internet.
