Fighting Terrorist Content Online - FRISCO

HSPs are providers of information services which store and disseminate publicly available information. A wide range of platforms can fall under this category such as social media, video image and audio-sharing services. While there is no full understanding for the moment on how much the entities affected by the TCO are aware of the regulation, it is clear that complying with the TCO regulation will be a critical concern for HSPs and especially for micro and small HSPs.

While some of the biggest online platforms have developed sophisticated AI based tools to detect terrorist content on their platform and manage the downstream process of these detected content – this is not the case for the vast majority of the HSPs operating in Europe and internationally. Because of their small structure, they usually lack the human and financial resources to manage the content of their platforms, which will make it difficult for them to comply with the new regulation. Micro, small and medium HSPs have limited expertise on how to manage illegal content on their platform and they usually do not have access to the necessary tools to appropriately manage this content. Terrorist organizations are increasingly disseminating their content on these HSPs that have less resources and means to detect and remove them. This is making micro and small HSPs a crucial target group in the new regulation.

The general objective of project FRISCO is to support micro and small hosting service providers to comply with the TCO regulation by assisting them in detecting and removing terrorist content online. FRISCO will focus on the following priorities:

1. Inform and increase HSPs’ awareness of the regulation and their new obligations along with the possible burdens it represents for their organization.
2. Develop tools, frameworks and mechanisms to strengthen their preparedness and support micro and small HSPs in the implementation of the TCO regulation in order to address the dissemination of TCO on their platforms.
3. Build capacities of HSPs by creating and distributing training material tailored to help them better understand the nature of terrorist content online, show them the means available to identify and remove TCOs and the mechanism and processes to implement to comply with the TCO regulation.
4. Sharing experience, best practices and tools to support the implementation of the TCO regulation.

The presence of terrorist content and other illegal content online is an increasing issue both from a security and public policy perspective. FRISCO is based on the Regulation (EU) 2021/7843, which addresses the dissemination of TCO and follows the 2020 Counter-Terrorism Agenda of the European Union (EU) that aims to proliferation of terrorist content online.

The French Ministry of Interior, through the sub-directorate for the fight against cybercrime (SDLC) and the ministerial delegation for partnerships, strategies and security innovations (DPSIS), has engaged into the project FRISCO so as to assure the role of head of the French team. The SDLC will ensure the coherence of the project with EUROPOL’s activities and more specifically with respect to the platform PERCI, currently under development. The DPSIS will monitor the smooth coordination of the project with the ministerial strategy of fight against cybercrime. Therefore, France puts a particular interest on the examination of the removal orders, the supervision of proactive measures the HSPs need to implement to fight against dissemination of terrorist content on their platforms, as well as in the sanctions to be taken against them in case of non-compliance.

As a result of the project micro and small HSPs will have a better understanding of what is terrorist content online and will be better prepared to deal with it and to comply to the new regulation. This will lead to safer navigation online by reducing the risk to encounter TCO.