Media Release issued Wednesday 21 September 2022

The Christchurch Call Summit in New York was another important milestone for the Call Community. The multi-stakeholder forum provided the opportunity for civil society members, academia, tech platforms and government leaders to discuss pathways forward in combatting terrorist and violent extremist content online.

“While many governments are grappling with these complex issues, we would like to see more transparency reporting from governments, that is consistent and comparable,” said Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono (IACT) Co-Lead, Anjum Rahman who attended the Summit on behalf of IACT.

Cooperation is critical in dealing with the harm occurring in online spaces that leads to both physical and psychological violence. Civil society members provide critical lived experience of the impacts of such material online, while also seeking to ensure that human rights are upheld.

As we learn more about the way terrorists are exploiting online spaces to spread video, images and justification for violent attacks, we can better support initiatives that seek to prevent such attacks.

“Accountability and transparency is equally important for tech platforms and governments that have signed up to the Call commitments, ” says Ms Rahman, “Crisis response work needs to be connected to prevention policies supported by governments.”

The announcement of research into the impacts of recommender algorithms is welcome, particularly where it addresses privacy concerns. This is a step that will hopefully lead to the independent audits of the impacts of algorithms, particularly where they might influence people to even more extreme views.

Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono is focused on bringing communities together to work on improving belonging and inclusion at both the community and national level. One of the best prevention measures to violent extremist content online, is to ensure people feel well connected in their communities and valued members of society.

“Content moderation alone cannot solve these issues and so we continue to advocate for online and offline approaches that are connected and inform each other. We thank all those who put significant effort into putting this multi stakeholder event together.”

-ENDS-