Big Tech Restructures Its Internet Counter-Terror Program as Independent Group
- Facebook’s Sandberg says challenge balancing privacy, safety
- Group intensified cooperation after Christchurch shootings
Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergFacebook Inc.’s Sheryl Sandberg said social media companies are investing money and stepping up cooperation to blunt violent extremists on their sites, an effort likely to be aided by revamping a tech industry counter-terror group.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), begun in 2017 by Facebook, Microsoft Corp., Twitter Inc. and Google’s YouTube, said Monday it will hire an executive director and staff with the aim of increasing cooperation among its companies and with government agencies in the battle against terrorism and violence on the platforms. The organization, funded by industry contributions, has up to this point been run by a rotating chair drawn from one of the four founding companies.