Between 21-22 November 2019, the 16th Referral Action Day coordinated by the European Union Internet Referral Unit took place at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. This action was joined by a total of 9 online service providers, including Telegram, Google, Files.fm, Twitter and Instagram.
This process is based on the referral by Europol of branded terrorist propaganda to online service platforms who are responsible for evaluating it to establish any potential breach of their terms of service. Among the items referred were propaganda videos, publications, and social media accounts supporting terrorism and violent extremism.
Whilst Google and Instagram deployed resilience mechanisms across their services, Telegram was the online service provider receiving most of the referral requests during this Action Day. As a result, a significant portion of key actors within the IS network on Telegram was pushed away from the platform.
In the past year and a half, Telegram has also put forth considerable effort to root out the abusers of the platform by both bolstering its technical capacity in countering malicious content and by establishing a close partnership with Europol.
Additionally, representatives from Google and YouTube came to Europol’s headquarters for an expert exchange, continuing the companies' ongoing cooperation in tackling terrorism online since the creation of the EU IRU.
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- Operational coordination
- Press Release/News
- Press Release
- Joint Action Days (JADs)
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