Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that social media activity by terrorist groups both within the UK and abroad is effectively monitored.

Mr Ben Wallace

This Government takes extremely seriously the threat from those that post online terrorist and extremist material.

In the UK, our dedicated police Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) proactively identifies and refers online terrorist and extremist content to communication service providers for removal. Since its inception in February 2010, CTIRU has secured the removal of more than 220,000 pieces of terrorist-related content. Its work has a global impact as content is removed by industry from their social media platforms world-wide.

Internationally, the UK assisted in the establishment of the European Internet Referrals Unit (EUIRU) which replicates the UK model at European level and services all Member States. The Unit went live on 1 July 2015 and has focused on a broad range of non-English language content, including Arabic, French and German. Since its creation, the EUIRU has secured the removal of over 12,000 pieces of terrorist-related content.