Meta Set to Chair Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism

Meta will become chair of nongovernmental organization the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism in January, and the company is making an open-source software tool it developed available free-of-charge to aid the cause.

GIFCT was established in August 2017 with Meta as one of the founding members, and it evolved into a nonprofit organization following the Christchurch Call to Action in September 2019.

The free open source software tool developed by Meta, Hasher-Matcher-Actioner, assists platforms in identifying copies of images or videos and taking bulk actions against that content.

Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg explained in a Newsroom post Tuesday that HMA builds on Meta’s previous open-source image- and video-matching software, and the hope is to help smaller companies lacking the resources of larger platforms.

Clegg wrote, “Member companies of the GIFCT often use what’s called a hash-sharing database to help keep their platforms free of terrorist content. Instead of storing harmful or exploitative content like videos from violent attacks or terrorist propaganda, GIFCT stores a hash, or unique digital fingerprint for each image and video. The more companies participate in the hash sharing database, the better and more comprehensive it is—and the better we all are at keeping terrorist content off the internet, especially since people will often move from one platform to another to share this content. But many companies do not have the in-house technology capabilities to find and moderate violating content in high volumes, which is why HMA is a potentially valuable tool.”