India Signs Christchurch Call To Action Initiative | Burning Issues | PDF Download

WHAT JUST HAPPENED ?

• India has recently joined a major global initiative called ‘Christchurch call to action’ to combat extremism and terrorism online and make internet a safe and secure place.
• It was signed by a group of governments and major tech companies at a summit in Paris.

ORIGIN

• New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron recently launched an ambitious new initiative called “Christchurch Call”, which is aimed at curbing extremism online.
• The initiative was pushed by Ms Ardern in backdrop of extremist attacks on two mosques in New Zealand city on 15 March 2019, in which a white supremacist gunned down 51 people and broadcasted live footage on Facebook. This gave rise to growing realisation that current abuse of social media by extremists must be countered.

MANDATE

• All signatories pledge to eliminate violent, terrorist and extremist content on social media as well as other online platforms. But pledge does not contain any regulatory or enforcement measures, and it would be completely up to each individual country and company to decide on how it would honour its voluntary commitments.
• The pledge also does not include the definition of ‘violent extremist content’, and it is up to individual companies to decide on what constituted objectionable material.
• It asks member nations to adopt and enforce laws which ban objectionable material, and set guidelines on how each countries traditional media can report acts of terrorism without amplifying them.

SIGNATORIES

• The signatories to the Christchurch Call include the European Commission, Governments from
• Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Senegal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom; and the following online service providers: Amazon, Daily Motion, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Qwant, Twitter, YouTube

MISSING

•  The United States (via representatives of the Trump administration) declined to attend, expressing concerns that U.S. compliance with the agreement could possibly create conflicts with free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution; the administration did express nominal agreement “with the overarching message of the Christchurch Call for Action” and “endorsing the overall goals”.

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