Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism

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Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) Twitter Screenshot as of April 12, 2023

Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) was "founded by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube in 2017". They work closely with the Christchurch Call.

About

From the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism website as of April 12, 2023:[1]

"Terrorist and violent extremist exploitation of the Internet threatens open societies everywhere.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) is an NGO designed to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms. Founded by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube in 2017, the Forum was established to foster technical collaboration among member companies, advance relevant research, and share knowledge with smaller platforms. Since 2017, GIFCT’s membership has expanded beyond the founding companies to include over a dozen diverse platforms committed to cross-industry efforts to counter the spread of terrorist and violent extremist content online.
These efforts have evolved in conjunction with the Christchurch Call to Action, an initiative that governments, tech platforms, and civil society organizations committed to after the March 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand and viral spread of the perpetrator’s live-streamed video of the attack. In addition to the Christchurch Call, tech companies also signed onto a nine-point plan designed to support industry efforts to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. At an UNGA side event led by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron in September 2019, the founding companies announced that GIFCT would spin off as an independent 501(c)(3) with its own dedicated technology, counterterrorism, and operations teams.
Four foundational goals guide the newly independent organization’s work:
Empower a broad range of technology companies, independently and collectively, with processes and tools to prevent and respond to abuse of their platforms by terrorists and violent extremists
Enable multi-stakeholder engagement around terrorist and violent extremist misuse of the Internet and encourage stakeholders to meet key commitments consistent with the GIFCT mission
Promote civil dialogue online and empower efforts to direct positive alternatives to the messages of terrorists and violent extremists

Advance broad understanding of terrorist and violent extremist operations and their evolution, including the intersection of online and offline activities.

Partners

Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) lists GNET Research [Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET)] and the United Nations initiative Tech Against Terrorism as partners.

Christchurch Call

Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) works with the Christchurch Call to thwart extremist content in real time using a system designed to work along side their "Crisis Response Protocol" referred to as the "Content Incident Protocol". The Christchurch Call put the system into practice during a mass shooting perpetrated by Payton S. Gendron, 18, in Buffalo, New York in 2022. According to the Christchurch Call website, "New Zealand’s Classification Office made a swift interim determination that the video and manifesto were objectionable and therefore illegal (sic) that country..."

From the Christchurch Call website as of April 12, 2023:[2]

"Importantly, the Call Crisis Response Protocol also contains guidance on principles to protect and respect human rights and a free, open and secure internet, as well as to ensure transparency and accountability, including through debriefs following a crisis response.
Other protocols include the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) Content Incident Protocol, which was developed to operate alongside the Crisis Response Protocol. There is also the European Union Crisis Protocol and several domestic ones, including for example the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs’ Online Crisis Response Process. These protocols can be activated singly or in combination, depending on the location of an attack, who has been impacted by it, and how related content is manifesting online.
The protocols are dynamic. They are tested, expanded and refined, based on experience and as real-world threats, technical capabilities, and policy contexts change.
Since 2019, the protocols have been tested on multiple occasions, including in response to real-world attacks, and as a result have been updated in different ways. The Christchurch Call implemented an update to its Crisis Response Protocol in 2021.

Crisis response in action: Buffalo attack 2022

"The value of the Call Community’s work on crisis response was clear after the Buffalo terrorist attack in May 2022. The perpetrator’s livestream was terminated quickly and the GIFCT activated its Content Incident Protocol to enable hash-sharing among its members. New Zealand’s Classification Office made a swift interim determination that the video and manifesto were objectionable and therefore illegal that country. Based on that determination, Tech Against Terrorism was then able to incorporate the content into its Terrorist Content Analytics Platform. This rapid and coordinated response meant that the content was much less prevalent on mainstream platforms.

Governance

From the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism website as of April 12, 2023:[3]

"The Independent Advisory Committee guides the Operating Board, including through an annual report advising on organizational priorities and reflecting on previous performance. Independent Advisory Committee meetings are held in conjunction with meetings of the Operating Board. The Independent Advisory Committee includes a minority of members from government and inter-governmental entities and a majority drawn from civil society understood broadly to include, among others, advocacy groups, human rights specialists, foundations, researchers and technical experts. All government representatives must represent governments that are members of the Freedom Online Coalition. The Independent Advisory Committee chair will always be a non-governmental representative. The Operating Board periodically reviews and updates the composition of the Independent Advisory Committee, with the intent of maintaining continuity of the group, encouraging diverse thinking and representing the global community."
"On June 26th, 2017, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and YouTube announced the formation of GIFCT. The founding companies created GIFCT with the belief that by working together, sharing the best technological and operational elements of our individual efforts, they could have a greater impact on the threat of terrorist content online. Building on the work of initiatives such as the EU Internet Forum and the Shared Industry Hash Database, the companies identified three core areas of work: technological solutions, research, and knowledge-sharing."

IAC Governance

Civil Society

Academia

Government

Intergovernmental

Team

From the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism website as of April 12, 2023:[4]

Teams with Southern Poverty Law Center

Verbatim from an article at PJ Media titled "Terrifying: The Big Tech Overlords Target Right-Wing 'Terrorism'" dated July 28, 2021:[5]

"Back in 2017, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). GIFCT shares terrorism data among Big Tech companies, enabling them to flag and remove terrorist content. On Monday, GIFCT announced that it significantly expanded the types of extremist content in its database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias. However, the research behind the database cites the far-left smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and brands one of the SPLC’s conservative targets a “violent extremist” group."
GIFCT’s database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list, largely focused on content from radical Islamist groups like the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban, Reuters reported. Yet on Monday, the forum announced that it would add white supremacist attacker manifestos and other publications and links flagged by the U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. GIFCT will use URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, and neo-Nazis.
Using GIFCT, the Big Tech companies share “perceptual hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services.
On Monday, GIFCT announced that it would include three new hashed categories:
Manifestos from terrorist and violent extremist attackers in PDF form;
Terrorist publications that use specific branding and logos for the organization in PDF form; and
URLs identified by Tech Against Terrorism as where specific terrorist content exists that are often shared and amplified on other platforms.
This expansion came after GIFCT spent six months engaging “a wide range of experts on expanding the reach and impact of our hash-sharing database’s taxonomy in order to respond to terrorist content online across the ideological spectrum.”
“We believe that our work must be complementary and mutually-reinforced with human rights and fundamental freedoms, starting with the material we recognize as terrorist content online,” the Big Tech organization declared. “This six-month project resulted in a compilation report from international experts that will help shape and inform our strategy for thoughtful, deliberate, and practical broadening of our taxonomy framework over time.”
Yet it appears GIFCT’s team of “experts” included the scandal-plagued Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which smears mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups,” putting them on a “hate map” with the Ku Klux Klan. Former employees have described the “hate map” as a con to bilk donors by exaggerating hate. An attempted terrorist opened fire at the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in Washington, D.C., attempting to kill everyone in the building and smear a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich into the faces of his victims. He told the FBI he used the SPLC’s “hate map” to target FRC.
Despite this history, the GIFCT report justifying the new policy references the SPLC’s reporting on the Oath Keepers and notes the SPLC’s “hate group” list as an option for a list of terrorist organizations. The report notes the difficulty of “maintaining a list of terrorist and violent extremist actors that is objective, global in scope, and updated in real time,” and notes that “no such expanded designation list is currently available, although there are a number of non-governmental lists, such as those compiled by… civil society actors like the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
"Considering the Oath Keepers’ involvement in the Capitol riot — and the involvement of other organizations the SPLC targets, such as the Proud Boys — it may make sense for GIFCT to target this group. However, the GIFCT list of organizations promoting “violent extremism” includes another organization on the SPLC’s “hate group” list that has no connection with the Capitol riot.
Among examples of “violent extremism,” alongside Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and antifa, the GIFCT report lists JihadWatch, a non-profit dedicated to combatting radical Islam. JihadWatch, run by PJ Media’s Robert Spencer, does not advocate violence in any way. Rather, it highlights the disturbing history of Islam and the connections between that history and the terrorist motivations of groups like the Islamic State.
"The presence of the SPLC in GIFCT’s report, and the suggestion that JihadWatch is a kind of “violent extremist” group do not bode well for conservatives on the internet.

GIFCT founders Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube have access to the list, as do Airbnb, Amazon, Discord, Dropbox, Instagram, Just Paste It, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, Mega, Pinterest, Tumblr, WhatsApp, and WordPress.

"The GIFCT announcement seems particularly ominous given recent moves in the Biden administration and among Big Tech companies. President Biden has fought to root out “extremism” in the military and “domestic terrorism” in America, efforts that seem targeted at conservatives. Facebook has started its own campaign against “extremism,” eerily echoing the administration...

References

  1. ↑ About (Accessed April 12, 2023)
  2. ↑ Partners (Accessed April 12, 2023)
  3. ↑ Governance (Accessed April 12, 2023)
  4. ↑ Team (Accessed April 12, 2023)
  5. ↑ Terrifying: The Big Tech Overlords Target Right-Wing 'Terrorism' (Accessed April 12, 2023)
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