The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) is an independent group through which member companies share information to combat terrorism and violent extremism on their sites.
Zoom Video Communications Inc, which saw usage explode during the COVID-19 pandemic but has faced slowing growth in recent months, has come under scrutiny over how to police content and abuses on its platform.
GIFCT’s founding members were Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Alphabet’s YouTube.
Tech companies have long been criticized for failing to curb violent extremist activity on their platforms, though they also face concerns over free expression.
GIFCT was created in 2017 under pressure from U.S. and European governments after a series of deadly attacks in Paris and Brussels.
It manages a hash-sharing database, where member companies can share “hashes”, unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other companies can use these hashes to identify the same content on their sites and review or remove the material.
Other members include Meta’s Instagram and WhatsApp, Pinterest, Amazon.com, chat platform Discord and file-sharing service Dropbox. Other companies such as Reddit and Snapchat-owner Snap can also access the hash-sharing database.
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