Use AI to eliminate extremist content, not widen its audience

One of the tactics that terrorists routinely embrace is to try to maximize the fear and intimidation that they hope their cruel and inhuman acts will trigger.

Today, the internet makes that easier than ever. The attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday, in which 50 people were killed, was livestreamed by the perpetrator on Facebook. And the self-avowed white supremacist accused of the attacks had, before the attacks, published a racist manifesto online in which he tried to justify his murderous intent.

The existing laws in almost all countries already restrict or ban the distribution of such violent content. Yet the success of the attacker in getting his message out - Facebook has already been criticized for failing to act quickly enough to block and remove the viral footage of the mosque killings - speaks of the urgency and necessity for a global alliance to counter the spread of Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi and other far-right propaganda.