Talking Points: Stopping Extremism On The Internet
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- In the aftermath of the London Bridge attack, British Prime Minister Theresa May called for the international regulation of the internet to prevent the spread of radical ideologies.
But American-based social media companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, have raised concerns that such regulation could infringe on constitutional rights to free speech and privacy.
The British prime minister says an international agreement to regulate cyberspace is needed to prevent the spread of terrorism as well as attacks likes the ones in London, Manchester and other places around the world.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) is the current ranking member of the Senate subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. Franken has pushed for measures to protect internet privacy and to protect equal and open access to the web.
"I think [May] is right," Franken said on WCCO Sunday Morning. "We cannot let the internet be a safe haven for terrorist propaganda...we have to be able to take down those kinds of sites."
The push to limit terrorist activity on the web is not new, and while initially major internet-based companies pushed back, there has been a change in the past year.
Twitter, for example, suspended 360,000 accounts last year that were linked to terror groups.
However, the problem, according to most experts, is that terror supporters quickly create new accounts or change to a different social media platform.