(RTTNews) - Four media tech giants have announced the formation of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, aimed at thwarting the spread of extremist content online.

In a joint statement Tuesday, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube said that by working together, sharing the best technological and operational elements of their individual efforts, they can have a greater impact on the threat of terrorist content online.

Each of the four companies have developed policies and practices that enable them to remove terrorist or violent extremist content on their hosted consumer services.

The new forum will formalize and structure areas of collaboration between the four companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups and academics, governments, the EU and the UN.

The Forum will focus on technological solutions, research and knowledge-sharing.

The tech giants said that through a joint partnership with the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (UN CTED) and the ICT4Peace Initiative, they are establishing a broad knowledge-sharing network.

The Forum will be hosting a series of learning workshops in partnership with UN CTED/ICT4Peace in Silicon Valley and around the world to drive these areas of collaboration.

G7 leaders had called on companies like Facebook and Google to expedite efforts to curb extremist content online.