This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30200311
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Lee Rigby murder: Internet firms must do more on terror, says PM | Lee Rigby murder: Internet firms must do more on terror, says PM |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Prime Minister David Cameron has said the big internet companies have a "social responsibility" to act on terrorist material posted online. | |
| It comes after a report into Fusilier Lee Rigby's murder found one of his killers spoke online about murdering a soldier five months before the attack. | It comes after a report into Fusilier Lee Rigby's murder found one of his killers spoke online about murdering a soldier five months before the attack. |
| The intelligence agencies did not know about this exchange, understood to have been on Facebook, until afterwards. | |
| Facebook said it did not allow terrorist content and aimed to stop it. | |
| Human rights organisations accused the inquiry of shifting the blame on to internet companies and away from the intelligence agencies. | |
| Fusilier Rigby was killed in May last year, near Woolwich Barracks in London. | |
| Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale drove into the 25-year-old before hacking him to death. | |
| The report, by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), concluded Fusilier Rigby's death could not have been prevented despite his killers appearing in seven intelligence investigations. | |
| 'Murder and mayhem' | |
| But it revealed Adebowale had expressed his intent to murder a soldier in a "graphic and emotive" manner during an exchange with an overseas extremist in December 2012. | |
| The report does not name Facebook, but said the company involved did not "regard themselves as under any obligation to ensure that they identify such threats, or to report them to the authorities". | |
| Committee chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind said had the security services had access to the exchange there was a "significant possibility that MI5 would have been able to prevent the attack". | |
| The Conservative politician accused the company of providing a "safe haven for terrorists". | |
| A Facebook spokesman said its policies were clear, adding: "We do not allow terrorist content on the site and take steps to prevent people from using our service for these purposes." | |
| Mr Cameron said there were "serious concerns" over the approach of some internet companies based overseas. | |
| "Terrorists are using the internet to communicate with each other and we must not accept that these communications are beyond the reach of the authorities or the internet companies themselves," he told MPs after the report was published. | |
| "Their networks are being used to plot murder and mayhem. It is their social responsibility to act on this." | |
| The report also said Adebowale had eight other social media accounts shut down for posting terrorist content - using automated systems that look for such content - but this information was not passed to authorities. | |
| Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty, said: "The ISC shamefully spins the facts seeking to blame the communications companies for not doing the agencies' work for them." | |
| Executive director Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said: "To pass the blame to internet companies is to use Fusilier Rigby's murder to make cheap political points." | |
| But Fusilier Rigby's uncle Raymond Dutton said he did not believe his nephew's murder was preventable. |