A neo-Nazi online forum amassed 800,000 visits in just one month, the prime minister will reveal today as Facebook announced it will restrict its service in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre.
A new alarming Home Office analysis, made public ahead of a summit of world leaders and internet companies in Paris, shows some 80,000 visits to the extremist site appeared to originate from the UK.
The report comes as fears mount that a lack of internet regulation could be fuelling a sharp rise in far-right activity.
At the summit, Theresa May will underline the report by UK civil servants and call for urgent action against far-right activities online.
Citing the Christchurch attack in New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, as proof change is needed, she will say: “The sickening attacks on Muslim worshippers in Christchurch shocked the world.
“That 1.5 million copies of the video had to be removed by Facebook - and could still be found on YouTube for as long as eight hours after it was first posted - is a stark reminder that we need to do more both to remove this content, and stop it going online in the first place.”
Leaders and social media companies will sign a joint pledge called the ’Christchurch call to action’ to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
The event will be co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.
Also expected to attend the Paris summit are Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and former UK deputy PM and Facebook head of global affairs, Sir Nick Clegg.
Far-right extremism in the UK
- As of the end of 2018, there were 28 individuals in prison in the UK for extreme right-wing terror offences.
- In addition to the 2017 Finsbury Park attack, police foiled four further extreme right-wing terror plots that year.
- Almost half of those referred to the Channel anti-terror programme in 2017/18 were initially referred for concerns related to right-wing extremism.
- Monitoring group Tell MAMA identified a 593% spike in recorded anti-Muslim hate crimes in the week following the Christchurch attack. Of 95 incidents reported to the group between March 15 and 21, 89% contained explicit references to that attack.
Meanwhile, Facebook announced it will restrict people who have broken certain rules from using its Live streaming feature.
The social network said it is toughening its stance in direct response to the Christchurch shooting, which saw a far-right terrorist broadcast his bloody attack live.
Its live broadcasts will now operate a “one strike” policy on any account which violates Facebook’s most serious policies from their first offence.
This means that, for example, if someone were to share a statement from a terrorist group with no context, they will be immediately blocked from using Facebook Live for a set period of time, such as 30 days.
Facebook said it intends to extend restrictions into other areas over the coming weeks, beginning with preventing those same people from creating ads on the social media site.
May will use the summit to urge firms to develop better technical solutions and collaborations, while asking leaders to follow the UK’s world leading approach set by its online harms white paper, which would create a legal duty of care on internet companies for the first time.
And she will urge attendees to turn their focus on to the far-right, highlighting the 12m posts and one million threads on just one white supremacist online forum identified by the UK Home Office.
She will tell attendees: “In 2017 – in the wake of five appalling attacks in the UK – I called for a much greater co-ordinated global response to fight back against Daesh (Islamic State) propaganda online.
“Many of the companies here today responded – and, in part thanks to the action you took, last year Daesh propaganda was at its lowest levels online since 2015.
“That shows us what is possible. Our work here must continue in order to keep pace with the threat. But we also need to confront the rise of the Far Right online.”