Christchurch Call in New Zealand

Thu., May. 16, 2019    |    CPOST

Recent terrorist attacks around the world, such as Christchurch, Sri Lanka and others, demonstrate the rise of the use of social media as a catalyst for spreading terrorism. CPOST Director, Dr. Pape, was invited by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, to attend the Christchurch Call on May 14 in Paris – a commitment by Governments and tech companies to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The next day, Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron, hosted a summit calling for social media companies to pledge to examine and share more content with governments who in turn would create and enforce laws banning violent extremist propaganda online. Most of the G7, as well as representatives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter and other tech companies also attended. “This is a major step in order to start to build a network. We have a network problem. We need a network solution. We need a commitment on the part of world leaders and tech companies to start down a road and then we need an actual process and that’s what the prime minister of New Zealand is unfolding,” said Dr. Pape to Australian ABC news.