OECD joins Christchurch Call to eliminate terrorist content online

The OECD has joined the Christchurch Call to action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, adding its support to an international coalition of stakeholders working to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting the Internet.

The Christchurch Call is a commitment by governments and technology companies to combat extremist content online, put in place after 51 people were killed at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch in a brutal terror attack that was livestreamed on social media.

Since hosting the 2019 meeting of world leaders, tech company CEOs and civil society organisations that resulted in the Christchurch Call, the OECD has been driving a multi-stakeholder process to standardise how online platforms publish information about the terrorist and violent extremist content that appears on their services and the policies and procedures they have in place to address it.

Following the Christchurch Call Second Anniversary Summit, co-chaired last week by French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the OECD has announced its formal support for the Christchurch Call. By formally joining the Christchurch Call, the OECD can collaborate more closely with the call community, adding its voice to underscore the imperative of collective action and ensuring that OECD outputs will be used most effectively to drive forward the Christchurch Call’s objectives.

A 2020 OECD report on the approaches to TVEC online taken by the world’s top 50 online platforms highlighted the need for more, and more consistent, reporting. Only five of the top 50 platforms were issuing transparency reports on TVEC and that, even among those five, the platforms differed substantially in how and what was reported. The dearth of reports, and the lack of comparability among them, are critical barriers to assessing the industry's efforts to counter terrorist and violent extremist content online and their impact on fundamental freedoms.

Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, said: “We have seen all too often the real-world harm that terrorist and violent extremist content online causes. But both companies and countries are struggling to find ways to combat this while protecting fundamental freedoms and human rights. Joining the Christchurch Call and continuing to advance our work in this area is what the OECD is all about: like-minded governments, in consultation with experts from business, civil society and academia, collaborating to improve the evidence base and help to build better policies for better lives.”