France is looking to combat terrorism with some help from the world's leading tech giants.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve met with representatives from Google, Twitter and Facebook on Friday to discuss how the companies could help the government in investigations regarding terrorism propaganda, according to The Christian Science Monitor. He said after the meeting that he talked about how going through the usual government channels takes too long to complete investigations.
"It's important to have full cooperation and quick reaction," Cazeneuve added.
While spokespeople from Twitter and Facebook said they do what they can to prevent material designed to incite violence, they didn't say if they would accept the minister's request to work with French officials, Al Jazeera reported.
"We regularly host ministers and other governmental officials from across the world at Facebook, and were happy to welcome Mr. Cazeneuve today," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We work aggressively to ensure that we do not have terrorists or terror groups using the site, and we also remove any content that praises or supports terrorism."
A Twitter spokesperson said in an email that the company's website outlines guidelines for law enforcement to request information, and that such rules "prohibit direct, specific threats of violence against others." Google also received an email requesting comment about working with French investigators, but the search giant has yet to answer it.
Cazeneuve's meeting with the three companies follows a month after the attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that resulted in the deaths of nearly 20 people, including the three gunmen who carried out the attack, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
U.S. intelligence officials say more foreign fighters are joining extremist groups like the Islamic State, with 3,400 among 20,000 from around the world coming from Western countries.
France is currently using a new website called stop-djihadisme.gouv.fr that fight terrorism by providing information about radicalization and jihad propaganda, along with a two-minute video showing the frightening reality of joining these organizations, The Christian Science Monitor reported. The country is also starting to get the attention of top security officials in Europe with its goal of treating jihadi material on the Internet like child porn.
"I told them we can figure this out together, we can come up with counterterrorism speech and block these sites that are enticing the most vulnerable members of our society to commit terrorist acts," Cazeneuve said, Al Jazeera reported
The minister referred to Friday's meeting as the first step in establishing a tight relationship between France and the three tech companies, and said that he invited them to come to Paris in April to continue their discussion.
