Clamp Down on Terrorism Online

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube are joining forces to quickly identify terrorist groups online, in a sign that the social media sites have been used by groups like Da’esh to plan operations in Europe and the Middle East. The new jointly run program will create a database of unique digital fingerprints to help automatically identify videos or images that the companies can remove. The process of removing the hot content will begin in 2017, according to the Associated Press, on December 6.  The use of social media websites by terror groups and supporters has added to the threat from so-called lone-wolf attacks and decreased the time from “flash to bang” — or radicalization to violence — with little or no time for law enforcement to follow evidentiary trails before an attack.