Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (IRU) celebrated its first birthday at the weekend, but civil liberties organisations are worried that it goes too far in its efforts to keep the Web free from extremist propaganda.

The IRU has been up and running since July 2015 as part of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in the Hague. The unit is charged with monitoring the Internet for extremist propaganda and referring “relevant online content towards concerned Internet service providers” in particular social media. Much was made of how the IRU could "contact social network service provider Facebook directly to ask it to delete a Web page run by ISIS or request details of other pages that might be run by the same user."

Although companies are not required to take down the content, European Commission figures from April 2016 show that the IRU had an effective removal rate of 91 percent. At that time it had assessed more than 4,700 posts across 45 platforms and sent over 3,200 referrals for Internet companies to remove content. The totals now are closer to 8,000 and 7,000, and Europol told Ars it will publish full details in the coming days.

In May the European Parliament gave the IRU new powers, and in April it combined forces with the UK National Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) on a 36-hour operation to secure the removal of worrying material as quickly as possible. The content was identified by asking users to report “harmful extremist and terrorist material” via a short, anonymous, online form.

622 websites and social media accounts in four languages containing terrorist and violent extremist propaganda, hosted by 13 social media and online service providers, were processed. Last week, Labour MP Yvette Cooper said: “In or out of the EU we need institutions like Europol to keep us safe.”

However AccessNow a global digital rights organisation said Europe’s approach to dealing with online extremism is “haphazard, alarming, tone-deaf, and entirely counter-productive."

According to AccessNow, “the IRU is outside the rule of law on several grounds. First, illegal content is just that—illegal. If law enforcement encounters illegal activity, be it online or off, it is expected to proceed in dealing with that in a legal, rights-respecting manner.

"Second, relegating dealing with this illegal content to a third private party, and leaving analysis and prosecution to their discretion, is both not just lazy—but extremely dangerous. Third, illegal content, if truly illegal, needs to be dealt with that way: with a court order and subsequent removal. The IRU’s blatant circumvention of the rule of law is in direct violation of international human rights standards.”

Europol says that its system is clearly working and cites violent extremist propaganda videos, pictures of beheadings, bomb-making instructions, and speeches calling for racial or religious violence as the sort of content it tackles.