The Cyber Threats Research Centre (CYTREC) will be part of a consortium to drive greater awareness of and compliance with the European Union’s new regulations to tackle terrorist content online.
The project comes as many tech platforms are unaware of the new obligations to tackle terrorist content, set by the European Union. This is compounded by the need for greater clarity amongst Member States themselves. In January 2023, the European Commission issued warning letters to 22 Member States for failing to comply with certain obligations from the Regulation on the dissemination of terrorist content online.
To drive awareness and best practice, Tech Against Terrorism Europe will combine unique industry-leading expertise from private sector organisations and leading academic institutions actively engaged in tackling terrorist content online.
The consortium of seven partners from six countries will ensure Tech Against Terrorism Europe will deliver long-term disruption of terrorist content online on priority platforms, providing a sustainable foundation to support smaller hosting service providers in countering terrorist content online.
Director of CYTREC, Professor Stuart Macdonald said:
“Our research has consistently highlighted the exploitation of small platforms online by terrorist groups and their supporters, so we are delighted to be a part of this important project, and have the opportunity to help these platforms become more resilient to terrorist exploitation”.
The Tech Against Terrorism Europe project is funded by the European Union Internal Security Fund (ISFP-2021-AG-TCO-101080101). This project will support smaller hosting services providers (HSPs) in building their counterterrorism frameworks and with transparency reporting, as required by the EU’s terrorist content online (TCO) regulation and in Directive (EU) 2017/541.
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