Internet giants must do more to crack down on online extremism, says General Petraeus

Former CIA director warns of 'whole new domain of warfare' online

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Internet giants must do more to combat the scourge of online extremism amid growing support from the public for a crackdown on radical material a former CIA director has said.

General David Petraeus warned that the internet offered an opportunity for a “whole new domain of warfare” and said that social media firms could do more to prevent the proliferation of terror content.

The retired general also pointed to the availability of bomb-making materials online in the wake of the attack at Parsons Green where 29 people were injured when a homemade bomb was partially detonated on a District Line train.

His comments came as research by the Policy Exchange think-tank found that almost three quarters of the public want tech companies to do more to remove content that could radicalise people.

Asked if enough was being done, General Petraeus told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think we are and I think frankly if you asked those who run, own, the social media platforms and the internet service provider companies and so forth, that they would acknowledge that.

“But this is a diabolically difficult problem to get the balance right between privacy on the one hand and then the tools and the authorities necessary to eliminate if possible and at the very least reduce very dramatically the way Islamists have been able to use cyberspace.”

The perpetrators of the Parsons Green bombing on Friday could have learned how to make the device online, he said, and called for propaganda and bomb-making instructions to be dealt with “more assiduously”.

General Petraeus, who commanded US forces in Afghanistan, said: “It appears again at the very least that the latest bomb, the bomb in London, you could find the directions for it on the internet.

“Now whether or not that’s how the individual got it or not is still to be determined but at the very least there is a lot of this out there and it doesn't take a very exhaustive effort to find it.

“That has to be identified and taken down more assiduously.”

Around three quarters of the 2,000 people surveyed by Policy Exchange wanted new laws to criminalise repeated viewing of extremist material online, while 73 per cent thought it should be illegal to view propaganda online.

Another 65 per cent people thought firms were not doing enough to combat the phenomenon and while respondents were split over whether internet companies or the Government should take ultimate responsibility, 75 per cent supported the introduction of an independent regulator.