Amber Rudd, the UK home secretary, is to ask Silicon Valley tech giants such as YouTube to increase their efforts to counteract extremist content posted online.
According to Reuters, Rudd will be traveling to the US to meet with senior executives from some of the world’s most prominent internet and social media firms to discuss ways in which they can tackle online extremist content.
The news of Rudd’s trip comes after the UK suffered a string of terrorist attacks, which resulted in the deaths of 36 people, and follows on from various government calls to regulate the internet and ban end-to-end encryption – both proposals largely criticised by technology entrepreneurs.
Rudd is also reportedly planning to attend a meeting of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a working group set up by internet companies in an attempt to work together and remove terrorist content posted on their platforms.
Some of the group’s founding members include Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter.
PM Theresa May has also spoken about the need to monitor and remove content which could potentially incite militants of terrorist groups in recent times.
During the G7 Summit, held in Italy a few months ago, the PM told world leaders that every nation should urge tech firms to block users posting extremist content as well as reporting individuals if there was evidence to suggest an imminent threat.