BRUSSELS
A plan to set-up a terror-fighting unit to remove extremist content from the Internet will be discussed by European Union officials on Thursday.
EU officials have reached out to Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other companies to discuss ways of removing extremist propaganda from the Internet, which they fear has become a hub for inspiring and recruiting extremists.
A study analyzing the population of Daesh-affiliated accounts on Twitter has found that there up to 90,000 Twitter accounts world-wide that support the militant extremist group.
EU officials also want Internet and telecommunication companies to share encryption keys with police agencies as part of the bloc’s plans to step up anti-terror measures.
The proposal by EU security officials will be presented in Brussels at a meeting of the home affairs and justice ministers of the 28 EU member states.
The plan comes two months after the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 17 people, and a series of anti-terror raids across Belgium.
More than 3,000 foreign fighters from Europeans have gone to Syria to join extremists.
