EU Internet Forum in Brussels

The Forum brings together relevant EU Ministers, technology companies and experts to discuss and advance responses to terrorism, violent extremism and illegal content online.

Niall Collins TD, Minister of State with special responsibility for International Law, Law Reform and Youth Justice, represented Ireland in Brussels today.

At the meeting, Ministers endorsed a revised EU Online Crisis Response Framework for the rapid removal of online content relating to terrorist attacks. This new Framework builds on the EU Internet Forum Protocol which was developed in the aftermath of the Christchurch terrorist attack in 2019, footage of which circulated widely online at the time.

The new Framework includes additional measures to enable Member States’ law enforcement authorities to share early warning alerts with other EU Internet Forum members in case of a suspected terrorist or violent extremist attack. This will allow for better monitoring and quicker action in case the situation develops into an online crisis.

The meeting also contained two round table discussions, the first of which opened with a presentation by Professor Maura Conway (Dublin City University and member of the EU Knowledge Hub Research Committee) on the threat landscape and risks to minors stemming from terrorism and violent extremism online.

Increasingly, these risks are interlinked with other harms, such as exploitation, self-harm, child sexual abuse and recruitment into organised crime. The presentation served as an introduction for the roundtable discussion on innovative actions and cooperation to better protect children online.

The second roundtable session opened with a presentation by Sasha Havlicek, Co-Founder and CEO of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), on the increase of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred online. Ministers and industry representatives then discussed actions being taken and required to effectively tackle this issue.