Ardern to lead efforts to stop online extremism

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will lead efforts to stop the use of social media to organise and promote terrorism in the wake of the Christchurch attacks.

Ardern said she would co-chair a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on 15 May, hoping to encourage countries and tech firms to agree to a pledge to eliminate terrorist content online. The meeting will be held in Paris alongside the ‘Tech for Humanity’ meeting of G7 digital ministers, which France chairs.

The Prime Minister told Radio New Zealand that she had already spoken to a handful of chief executives about the ‘Christchurch Call’ pledge, including Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.

The meeting follows the terrorist attack in Christchurch in March, where a gunman killed 50 people in an attack on two mosques while live-streaming the massacre on Facebook. Its was the latest incident to shine a light on how sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube struggle to address extremism on their platforms.

In a statement, Ardern said: “The March 15 terrorist attacks saw social media used in an unprecedented way as a tool to promote an act of terrorism and hate. It's critical that technology platforms like Facebook are not perverted as a tool for terrorism, and instead become part of a global solution to countering extremism.

"Social media platforms can connect people in many very positive ways, and we all want this to continue. But for too long, it has also been possible to use these platforms to incite extremist violence, and even to distribute images of that violence, as happened in Christchurch. This is what needs to change."