Chris Marshall: Painful truth about the internet and terror

The attack on commuters at Parsons Green underground station prompted US President Donald Trump to point the finger at the internet as the "main recruitment tool" of terrorists.

Trump, who earlier this year criticised mayor Sadiq Khan hours after the London Bridge attack, seemed to suggest the police had somehow slipped up. He tweeted: “Another attack in London by a loser terrorist. These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive!”

It’s unclear what the president was basing his analysis on, but his comments were spectacularly ill-timed and led to a rebuke from Prime Minister Theresa May.

Despite his blundering, however, Trump did hit on something incontrovertible when he went on to tweet that the internet had become the “main recruitment tool” of terrorists.

That the internet and the proliferation of social media has not only enabled those who wish to carry out terrorist attacks but also those who seek to revel in them, cannot be in doubt.

Trump ended his tweet with a customary flourish: “Must cut off & use better!” he said, characteristically identifying a problem but offering no solution for how to tackle it.

Despite growing political pressure on Google, Facebook, YouTube and others, that solution still appears to be some way off.

All the while, the problem appears to be worsening.

According to a study by the think tank Policy Exchange, jihadist content attracts more views in Britain than anywhere else in Europe.

Researchers say the UK is the fifth most frequent location from which such content is accessed behind only Turkey, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

In the report’s foreword, former US military chief General David Petraeus said it was possible to find online instructions on how to build a bomb like the one used at Parsons Green.

He warned that current efforts to combat violent extremism online are “inadequate”, while the report’s lead author, Dr Martyn Frampton, said the current response was a “fruitless game of whack-a-mole” which focusses on removing offensive content one piece at a time.

In a separate study published today, it is warned that more than 120 videos featuring jihadist or far-right material were not removed from YouTube even after they had been flagged to the site’s administrators.

Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the Commons home affairs select committee who commissioned the report, said it was “simply unacceptable” that some content remained live for weeks after concerns were raised.

A response to all this which simply places the responsibility on Facebook, YouTube et al to act as an online police force is one which misses the bigger picture of why – not how – young men become radicalised.

But the internet giants are not only failing to prevent but sometimes unwittingly aiding the spread of hate.

There is currently no imperative, other than a moral one, for them to act.

In Germany, a law which will allow internet companies to be fined up to €50 million for failing to remove hateful posts is due to come into effect next month.

Similar legislation in the UK surely cannot be too far off.