British ministers call for more social responsibility in the Internet industry

British foreign minister Boris Johnson and home secretary Amber Rudd have called for Internet companies to show more ‘social responsibility’ in the ways in which they manage terrorist and extremist content. Boris Johnson criticised the ‘disgusting’ Internet companies, such as Google, for benefiting from extremist content, referring to the growing controversy around Google’s advertising practices, which has even resulted in a ‘Google boycott‘.

Amber Rudd pointed at the role of the Internet in the recent Westminster attack, describing it ‘as a conduit, inciting and inspiring violence, and spreading extremist ideology of all kinds‘. According to her, responding to this challenge requires the help of social media companies, both the large ones (Google, Twitter, Facebook) and smaller ones (e.g. Telegram, WordPress and Justpaste.it).