Some Daily Mail readers are claiming today’s splash labelling Google as “the terrorist’s friend” may have missed the mark.
The Mail thundered on its front page: “Yesterday it took the Mail two minutes on web to find a terror manual on how to use a car for mass murder”
No one would doubt the sincerity of the Daily Mail’s campaign to cleanup terror-related material on social media.
But some questioned whether a guide on how to deliberately drive a car at pedestrians was needed to perform an attack:
Others suggested the way the story was presented reflected the paper’s reputation as being stuck in the past and for stoking fear:
While overly simplistic, less charitable contributors suggested it shouldn’t have taken three reporters to use a search engine:
The front page aside, the Mail’s investigation found “Islamic State terror manuals”, including one published a year ago, before the incidents in Nice and Berlin, about using cars and knives to stage an attack.
Information about the best vehicles to use, as well as where to strike with a knife on the body was also found by Mail reporters.
While the mockery of the Mail may have been strong, even Downing Street said this morning that social media companies must do more on the issue:
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has also urged internet firms to act faster to take down such content.
According to Metro, he said: “This is something that the internet companies and social media companies need to think about.
“They need to do more to take that stuff off their media, the incitements, the information about how to become a terrorist, the radicalising sermons and messages. That needs to come down.”
The Mail has reported Google has now removed the links its journalists found.
Reporters also found links on Twitter, one of which was removed when they contacted the social media company.
It was announced last year that Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft would be joining forces to curb the dissemination of terrorist content on their platforms.
The four firms have committed to using a shared database of digital fingerprints to swiftly find and remove extremist content.
If one company removes a piece of content, the others will be able to use the same fingerprint, known as a hash, to quickly follow suit.