Google, Facebook, Twitter Face EU Fines Over Extremist Posts

Google, Facebook, Twitter  Face EU Fines  Over Extremist Posts

Google, Facebook and Twitter must remove extremist content within an hour or face hefty fines, the European Commission's president has said.

In his annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament, Jean-Claude Juncker said an hour was a "decisive time window".

Net firms had been given three months in March to show they were acting faster to take down radical posts.


But EU regulators said too little was being done.

If authorities flag content that incites and advocates extremism, the content must be removed from the web within an hour, the proposal from the EU's lead civil servant states. Net firms that fail to comply would face fines of up to 4% of their annual global turnover.

The proposal will need backing from the countries that make up the European Union as well as the European Parliament.

In response to the plans, Facebook said: "There is no place for terrorism on Facebook, and we share the goal of the European Commission to fight it, and believe that it is only through a common effort across companies, civil society and institutions that results can be achieved.

"We've made significant strides finding and removing terrorist propaganda quickly and at scale, but we know we can do more."