EU okays 1-hour law to wipe terrorist content

Strasbourg : The European Union yesterday proposed steps to force social networks and websites to remove terrorist propaganda within an hour of receiving the order from authorities, or companies like Facebook and Twitter could face massive fines. The legislation proposed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker marks a toughening approach after Brussels had relied on internet firms to voluntarily remove such content. The internet has become a major tool for extremists carrying out attacks that have killed hundreds of people in European cities in recent years.

“Europeans rightly expect their Union to keep them safe,” Juncker told the European Parliament in his annual state of the union speech. “This is why the Commission is today proposing new rules to get terrorist content off the web within one hour –- the critical window in which the greatest damage is done.” The EU’s executive arm said that in January alone, nearly 7,000 new pieces of propaganda disseminated online from the Islamic State group, even as it has been driven out of most of its strongholds in Iraq and Syria. The commission proposal calls for a “legally binding one-hour deadline” for firms to remove terrorist content once national authorities order them to do so.