Zoom is the Newest Member of Tech Industry Counterterrorism Group GIFCT

Zoom has joined a counter-terrorism organization formed by major US tech companies such as Meta, formerly known as Facebook, and Microsoft, the group announced on Wednesday.

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) is an independent organization whose members share information on their websites to combat terrorism and violent extremism.

Zoom, whose usage skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since slowed, has come under fire for failing to police content and abuse on its platform.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Alphabet’s YouTube were among the founding members of GIFCT.

Its membership has grown to 18 companies, with five new platforms joining this year, including Airbnb, the social network Tumblr, and the online publishing platform WordPress. More are planned for 2022, according to the company.

Tech companies have long been chastised for failing to prevent violent extremist activity on their platforms, despite concerns about free expression.

Following a series of deadly attacks in Paris and Brussels in 2017, the US and European governments pressed for the establishment of GIFCT.

It runs a hash-sharing database where members can share “hashes,” which are unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other businesses can use these hashes to identify duplicate content on their sites and review or remove it.

“It is our responsibility to support our users and protect them from online threats,” said Josh Parecki, Zoom’s associate general counsel for trust and safety.

“By working with other industry leaders, sharing key learnings, and advancing research, we hope to make the digital world a safer place for all.”

Zoom faced high-profile content moderation issues as individuals and businesses turned to video-conferencing apps during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

These ranged from abuses such as “zoombombing,” in which uninvited users crashed others’ calls to share hate speech and racist, violent, or pornographic content, to decisions such as the cancellation of a virtual event featuring Leila Khaled, a member of a Palestinian group on the US State Department’s terrorist organization list.

GIFCT Executive Director Nicholas Rasmussen stated in a statement that the organization is excited to add Zoom because its mission “requires us to work with a diverse range of companies…to develop cross-platform solutions that render terrorists and violent extremists ineffective across the Internet.”

Some human and digital rights advocates have criticized GIFCT for centralized or overbroad censorship, and have called for greater transparency.

The organization expanded the scope of its hash-sharing database in July to include attacker manifestos as well as other publications and URLs flagged by the United Nations initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It also stated that it would continue to expand the database by including hashes of audio files or specific symbols.

GIFCT also announced on Wednesday a new membership structure based on company revenue, with suggested annual contributions ranging from $0 to $1 million (roughly Rs. 7.6 crore). It stated that membership was not dependent on a company’s revenue.

Meta’s Instagram and WhatsApp, Pinterest, Amazon, the chat platform Discord, and the file-sharing service Dropbox are also members. Other companies, including Reddit and Snap, the owner of Snapchat, can also access the hash-sharing database.