Firms could be required to remove extremist material within 24 hours of a complaint

Google, Facebook, YouTube and other sites would be required by law to take down extremist material within 24 hours of receiving a complaint under an amendment put forward for inclusion in new counter-terror legislation.

The addition to the counter-terrorism bill passing through parliament has been proposed by the Labour MP Stephen Doughty and would echo “takedown” laws that came into effect in Germany last year.

The counter-terrorism strategy unveiled by the home secretary, Sajid Javid, this month, said the Home Office would place a “renewed emphasis on engagement” with internet providers and work with the tech industry “to seek more investment in technologies that automatically identify and remove terrorist content before it is accessible to all”.

But Doughty, a member of the home affairs select committee, said his amendment was needed because the voluntary approach was failing. He said a wide variety of extremist content remained online despite repeated warnings.

“If these companies can remove copyrighted video or music content from companies like Disney within a matter of hours, there is no excuse for them to be failing to do so for extremist material,” he said.

“It is clear we now need a robust regulatory system and appropriate sanctions to require proactive investigation by tech companies of what they are hosting and swift takedown of content and accounts which glorify and encourage terrorist organisations and extremist views.”

Doughty’s amendment would also require tech companies to proactively check content for extremist material and take it down within six hours of it being identified.

The bill is at the committee stage as it passes through parliament, where a detailed line-by-line examination takes place.

After the Westminster attack in March 2017, Javid’s predecessor, Amber Rudd, met the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft to discuss what more could be done to tackle terrorist content online. This led to the companies setting up the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT).

In February this year Rudd flew to Silicon Valley in California to meet tech executives and discuss further ways they could improve tackling extremist content online.