The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) was established in July 2017 as a group of companies, dedicated to disrupting terrorist abuse of members’ digital platforms. The original Forum was led by a rotating chair drawn from the founding companies—Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube—and managed a program of knowledge-sharing, technical collaboration and shared research. Building on that early success, cognizant of terrorists’ determined and increasingly sophisticated efforts to abuse digital platforms, as exemplified by the Christchurch attack, and inspired by the multi-stakeholder approach of the Christchurch Call, the founders decided it is time to establish GIFCT as an independent organization capable of sustaining and deepening industry collaboration and capacity, while incorporating the advice of key civil society and government stakeholders.

Nick Rasmussen recently joined GIFCT as the first fulltime Executive Director and the Independent Advisory Committee comprised of representatives from government and civil society understood broadly to include, among others, advocacy groups, human rights specialists, foundations, researchers and technical experts has been launched.

During the IGF pre-event, Nick will share the latest trends in how terrorism and extremism are manifesting themselves in online environments. We will briefly discuss the 4 GIFCT Goals and 3 strategic pillars found at https://www.gifct.org/about/. Finally, members of the Independent Advisory Committee will discuss the role they hope to play in shaping the next version of this organization.

Most of the time will be reserved for discussion with the audience. Are we on the right track? Are there concerns about this approach? What are we missing? What else could we be doing to strengthen collaboration?

We realize that not all agree with our approach. There are concerns about the impact on freedom of expression and human rights and we will use this session to engage in constructive conversations about how we can better understand each other and find ways to work together. It could be that because of feedback from this session, GIFCT incorporates additional efforts, refines messaging and even changes strategies. We will not know until we engage in actual conversations, but we are open to the feedback because, in the end, countering terrorist and violent extremist content is a shared goal for everyone.