Internet Infrastructure Companies Critical To Curbing Online Extremism

Extremists across the world have misused social media platforms to upload violent propaganda and hateful manifestos. Counter Extremism Project (CEP) Executive Director David Ibsen recently wrote in an op-ed for The Hill about the attacks in El Paso, Christchurch, and Poway—all of which have links to 8chan’s politically incorrect board, an online message board known for attracting far-right and neo-Nazi users due to its lax content moderation policies. Ibsen states that despite 8chan’s refusal to remove white nationalist and white supremacist material under the guise of protecting free speech, Internet infrastructure companies “have demonstrated that it is possible to combat such inaction and prevent the spread of extremist content.” Internet infrastructure companies such as Voxility can choose to cease providing services to other tech firms that support and help facilitate the spread of extremism online, thereby shutting down those companies’ operations, as Voxility did in the case of the El Paso attack and Epik/Bitmitigate.