Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft have announced the formation of a Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. This cooperation includes sharing technical solutions, research to inform their efforts, and working with counter-terrorism experts - including the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate and the ICT4Peace Foundation - to establish a knowledge-sharing network. The Forum does not [...]

The UN Report of the Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of the right to freedom of opinion and expression examining, in particular, the role of States in undermining freedom of expression online and other implications for online rights, including recommendations for States and private actors is now available. The report includes a summary of consultations, [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, and Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Edison Lanza, have condemned the practice of censorship and Internet blocking in Venezuela. They pointed out that 'even under a state of emergency, the regulation as well as limitation [...]

The Danish government has announced a list of measures against growing radicalisation, including a 'corps of digital voices of reason', which aims at challenging online extremist content. The corps will be operated by civil society and would 'systematically be present in social media and engage critically in relevant forums, take part in dialogue and challenge [...]

The Annual Meeting of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE) took place in Washington D.C., 1-2 June 2016. The GFCE is a global platform that gathers over 50 countries, international organisations and companies, aiming to strengthen cyber capacities through joint initiatives by its members and other partners. The Annual Meeting was an opportunity to [...]

The European Commission and IT companies have announced a Code of Conduct on illegal online hate speech, which includes a series of commitments to fight against the dissemination of online hate speech in Europe. According to Twitter's Head of Public Policy for Europe, Karen White, 'Hateful conduct has no place on Twitter and we will [...]

The Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the High Representative of the European Union have presented a Joint Communiqué at the G7 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, 'to address a number of major international issues that impact global peace, security and prosperity.' The Communiqué makes several references [...]

The Technology Facilitation Mechanism for the Sustainable Development Goals is inviting participants from civil society, academia, the private sector and the technical community to join online discussions on science, technology and innovation for SDGs. These discussions will be moderated by internationally recognised experts and will feed directly into the first multi-stakeholder forum on science, technology and innovation [...]

The OSCE’s 57 participating states have adopted Decision No. 1201 that expands the organisation’s list of confidence-building measures (CBMs) to reduce the risks of conflict stemming from the use of ICT. The new measures build on the first round of CBMs adopted in 2013, adding five more measures that encourage cooperation in critical infrastructure protection, [...]

In a speech given at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Robert Hannigan, director of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (the UK intelligence agency) asked for a strengthened cooperation between governments and technology companies in order to end the ‘abuse of encryption’ by a ‘minority of people who want to do harm to others’. Hannigan [...]