Digital Smarts - Social Media Sites Band Together Against Terror

Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook have all announced that they will be sharing databases to prevent terrorist groups from using the sites to post content and recruit. "There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services," the companies said in a joint statement.

Given the recent discussions about the spread of fake news on social media, critics hope this new collaboration could potentially pave a path for the companies to work together on other initiatives going forward. The problem of false news raises questions about the potential role these companies should play in battling that content. Some feel these companies have no business being arbitrators of the news or what’s right and wrong — and it would be easy for the companies to keep themselves removed and escape all responsibility in the matter. However, because of their outsized influence on today’s web, these companies are beginning to wake up to the fact that they will be held accountable for the content shared on their platforms considering that content has the ability to influence everything from terrorist acts to how people perceive the world on a global scale.