US leaders meet with tech CEOs to fight terrorism online
Top brass from the FBI and beyond are meeting with Facebook, Google, Twitter and other top internet firms.
The US is determined to knock terrorists offline whenever it can, and it's about to go to great lengths to make sure that happens. Business Insider, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal understand that some of the country's highest-ranking officials are meeting with the CEOs of internet giants like Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo to ask for stronger efforts to fight online terrorist activity. And we do mean high-ranking -- the directors of the FBI, National Intelligence and the NSA will be involved, as will the Attorney General and the White House's chief of staff.
The primary focus will be on countering terrorists' messages, including finding ways to "disrupt" radicalization, measure anti-terrorist efforts and recognize extremists' recruiting methods. Privacy issues like encryption are supposed to be secondary. However, there's a concern that the leadership will keep up its push for backdoor access despite the known security risks. The subject is bound to come up, according to some of the Guardian's tipsters.
Whether or not the government succeeds is up in the air. While these tech firms have taken steps to fight terrorism, they're leery of anything that makes it look like they're inviting government spies and otherwise compromising customers' privacy in the name of security. As such, it's likely that the government will only get some of what it wants. Internet companies may do more to block terrorists and send out more positive vibes, but they probably won't budge on changes to their technology.
[Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
