Diverse World, One Internet: How to Regulate Online Extremist Content?

[Extract] When a terrorist attacked worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand earlier this year, he live-streamed the attack on Facebook. Some 200 people saw real-time how a white supremacist on a killing spree murdered dozens of Muslims with semi-automatic rifles.

Events like this increase concerns about the internet being used as a platform to spread hate and extremism. Together with a range of other content such as “fake news” style misinformation, child abuse materials, and traditional spam, this may lead to a “junkification” of the web. Over time, this could seriously affect the internet’s usefulness for everyone. It is clear that action is needed, but how?

Many relevant questions are highly controversial. For example, how do we decide what content must be removed? Who should make that decision? And if content is to be removed, should it be removed locally, regionally, or globally?