The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy said it would not join an call to curb extremist content online. | Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images Technology White House won’t sign global call to curb terrorist content online

The White House on Wednesday said it will not join an international call for Facebook, Twitter, Google and other tech companies to curb terrorist and extremist content online in the wake of the deadly New Zealand mosque shootings, videos of which spread across social media.

The so-called Christchurch call, spearheaded by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron, urges social media firms to evaluate how their platforms direct users to violent content and to better coordinate with global authorities and other industry leaders to contain the spread of such materials.


“While the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement, we continue to support the overall goals reflected in the Call,” the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy said in a release. “We will continue to engage governments, industry, and civil society to counter terrorist content on the Internet.”

The White House didn't specifically state why it wouldn't join the call but said in its statement that it believes "the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech" and advocated "promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging."

House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who told POLITICO Tuesday he's planning a hearing on terrorist content online, sharply criticized the White House's decision not to sign onto the call.

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"I'm not surprised," he told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "They've demonstrated that they don't get it and that anything remotely related to right-wing terrorism they've just [been] reluctant to be critical."

The move comes amid growing scrutiny of tech companies’ efforts to stop the spread of videos of the New Zealand shootings, as well as of hateful rhetoric inciting violent acts.

After meeting with Ardern and Macron to discuss the Christchurch call in Paris Wednesday, five leading tech giants committed to a nine-point action plan to tackle the spread of terrorist content online.

"We are sharing concrete steps we will take that address the abuse of technology to spread terrorist content, including continued investment in technology that improves our capability to detect and remove this content from our services, updates to our individual terms of use, and more transparency for content policies and removals," Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon said in a joint statement.

Their plan comprises five individual actions and four collaborative ones, some of which reflect a redoubling of or recommitment to existing efforts, rather than new initiatives.

The companies will update their terms of use and community standards to "expressly prohibit the distribution of terrorist and violent extremist content," ensure reporting mechanisms are user-friendly, continue to invest in content recognition technologies, strengthen vetting rules for live streaming and publish regular transparency reports on the detection and removal of terrorist content.

In collaboration with governments and NGOs, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon also pledged to share technology development, create coordinated crisis protocols for responding "to emerging or active events on an urgent basis," help educate the public about terrorist propaganda online and "combat hate and bigotry."

Facebook had separately said Tuesday it will ban certain people who break rules including those against “dangerous individuals and organizations” from livestreaming for certain periods of time.

