This article was published on January 8, 2016

Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter to meet White House over terrorists’ use of social media


Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter to meet White House over terrorists’ use of social media

Top executives from several major Silicon Valley tech firms are scheduled to meet with senior White House officials as well as US intelligence and security agencies to discuss measures to counter militant groups’ use of social media for recruitment and spreading propaganda.

Reuters reports that White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, presidential counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers will participate in the meeting.

According to Buzzfeed, Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to be present as well. Also joining the meeting are executives from Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, Facebook and Twitter.

An agenda obtained by The Washington Post indicates that the meeting will center around ways to make it harder for terrorists to leverage the internet to radicalize followers, as well as the use of technology to identify recruitment patterns.

Encryption will also figure in the discussion. It’ll be interesting to learn the outcome of the meeting, as a number of the companies involved have spoken out against the dangers of weakening encryption and the importance of its use to keep people’s data secure and private.

White House, Silicon Valley to hold summit on militants’ social media use [Reuters]

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