The Internet is a treasure trove of information, with many different topics being actively discussed every single day. Unfortunately, this also means that there is content out there that raises a lot of questions. Terrorist propaganda, for example, is often frowned upon by governments and law enforcement agencies. Europol has devised a new way to keep that type of content offline permanently.
Europol Starts Censoring Terrorist Propaganda
While it is understandable that law enforcement agencies would rather not see terrorist propaganda become widespread on the Internet, they are enforcing censorship in some capacity. That is not a positive development by any means, but it is doubtful that they will change their minds regarding these matters anytime soon.
By collaborating with authorities in Belgium, Romania, France, and The Netherlands, Europol has taken several documents that glorify terrorism offline in the past few weeks. Nearly 2,000 files and offline texts have been removed from the Internet, even though they were distributed to several dozen online platforms.
The content in question contained text files and other data in nine different languages. One thing they all had in common is how everything related to terrorism, most of which seems linked to ISIS and Al Qaida. Further details were not revealed at this time, which, given the nature of this data, is not entirely surprising.
All providers hosting the online platforms where this content was published have voluntarily collaborated to make this investigation a success. In fact, the content in question is a direct violation of their own TOS, and it is in their best interest not to be associated with these types of propaganda. It took two full days to get everything removed, which is a lot quicker than most people anticipated.
Europol has been on an aggressive campaign to rid the Internet of malicious content. Terrorist propaganda is just one aspect of their operations , though. In the past few months, the law enforcement agency shut down 4,500 domain names which were used to sell counterfeit goods. No arrests were made during that investigation so far, but the case has not been closed either.
Last but not least, Europol remains vigilant when it comes to the global ransomware threat. It is good to see that law enforcement agencies are focusing their attention on the issues that matter, rather than trying to please political agendas. Moreover, Europol does not overstep warrant boundaries, unlike their FBI counterparts.
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