Context: India has joined a major global initiative ‘Christchurch call to action’ to combat terrorism and extremism online; and make internet a safe and secure place to be.

About Christchurch call to action:

• The initiative was launched during the “Online Extremism Summit” in Paris.
• It was launched jointly by India, France, New Zealand, Canada and several other countries. A total of 18 countries including the European Union supported the initiative along with social media giants like Twitter, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
• Aim to prevent the abuse of the internet.
• The initiative outlines collective and voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online.
• It calls for a free, open and secure internet to promote connectivity, enhance social inclusiveness and foster economic growth.

Background:

The ‘Christchurch call to action’ initiative has been named after the New Zealand city Christchurch, where over 50 people were killed and over 20 got injured in shootings at two mosques.

Need:

As internet is not resistant towards the abuse by terrorists and violent extremists, there is an urgent need of collective efforts to secure the internet from such terror groups. Recent Christchurch terror attacks were broadcasted online by terrorists. The broadcasting of such content online has severe impact on victims of such incident, on collective security and on people across the world.

The Christchurch attack stressed on the urgent call of action by the governments, civil society, online service providers, and social media companies to eliminate terrorist and extremist content online.