(15.06.2022)
Similarly, following pressure from EU security officials, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft set up the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), an industry organization that developed a hash-matching database now used in various ways by GIFCT’s 16 member firms, including Amazon, Airbnb, Discord, Tumblr, Zoom, Mailchimp, and Dropbox.
The EU proposal seeks to change the tenor of what has largely been a system of uneasy collaboration—underpinned by government pressure and threats of potential future sanctions, yes, but still voluntary and grounded in industry good-faith nonetheless. Instead, the regulation seeks to compel firms to deploy systems for the automated detection and removal of a broad range of content that might foster child abuse, rather than just incentivizing and encouraging the development of these kinds of systems informally.