Chinese envoy urges internet service providers to lead fight against terrorism

A Chinese envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday called on internet service providers to enhance self-discipline and take initiative in the fight against terrorism.

While speaking at a Security Council meeting here on terrorism, Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, urged to cut off terrorists' channels for spreading terrorist ideologies as "the internet and social media have been used by terrorists as a new platform to spread terrorist ideologies."

He told internet service providers to enhance self-discipline, raise legal awareness and sense of responsibility and to take the initiative to take down content suspected of spreading terrorist ideologies.

"The international community should prevent terrorist originations from using the internet to release audio visual materials to incite hatred and spread terrorist ideologies," Liu added.

Moreover, Liu noted that all countries should incorporate counter-terrorism into their national policy for security and development. He also said counter-terrorism publicity campaign is an important way to increase public awareness about counter-terrorism.

At the meeting, Steven Crown, vice president of Microsoft Corporation, said that for the internet industry, the challenge of terrorist propaganda and communication is daunting.

"If there were an elegant solution, the industry would have adopted it," said Crown. "But there is no single answer; there is no silver bullet that will stop terrorist use of the internet."

He said another unfortunate truth is that there is no universally accepted definition of terrorism or extremism, neither at the international level nor at the regional level.

In a presidential statement adopted here, the Security Council noted the urgent need to understand how the terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaida, recruit others and to develop a counter narrative campaign to amplify active denouncers of these groups.

The council asked its Counter-Terrorism Committee to present a proposal on the framework with recommended guidelines and good practices by April 30, 2017.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson also called for further study and research on how violent extremists are using the internet and social media.

He noted the need to listen to affected communities, engage at the grassroots level, partner with faith leaders, women and young people to respond to extremism at local levels. Endit