The Government of Canada is taking steps to limit the promotion of terrorism or violent extremist content on the internet.
The federal government has adopted the Christchurch calls to action, and also announced two initiatives; committing up to $1 million to Tech Against Terrorism and creating a Youth Summit on Countering Violent Extremism Online.
Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale said as technology evolves, the challenge to do something about the spread of terror and extremist views online gets greater.
“The companies have a considerable distance yet to go to meet the expectations and to satisfy the community of nations that are very concerned about the dangerous material that is pervaded on the internet and the horrendous consequences that can flow from that as we saw most recently in Christchurch.”
Goodale said many smaller companies are willing and anxious to participate in these initiatives.
“Some of the small companies are just a one or two person operation,” Goodale said. “They don’t have the depth or the wherewithal to be able to be as proactive as Microsoft or Google, or Twitter or the others.”
Goodale said work is already being done to keep people aware of the danger that exists within extremism and terrorist content.
“If you’re driving through some holiday location, your phone is bound to be bombarded with ads for hotels, beaches and resort locations, and so on,” Goodale said. “Why can’t you use that same technique in the interest of public safety? If you detect that somebody is headed on a dangerous path, put the other information in front of them.”
This comes after attacks to two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand were live streamed on social media by members of the extremist group behind the attacks in March.
