European governments are asking top tech companies in the United States to inform authorities of any terrorism-related posts.
The French and German governments have expressed their need for social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to keep watch of terrorism online and remove any content that are related to it or there will be laws against it.
Many are aware how some European governments have already asked Google specifically to remove people from their "results page," if they have asked to. This is part of the "right to be forgotten" law that the European Union passed last year.
In effect, 60,000 links were requested to be removed from Google's search results page, and the requests came pouring in after the said law has taken effect in May 2014. But not every single request was granted. The search giant had to weed out requests that were not reasonable enough to be taken off the results page.
The right to be forgotten law, made specifically for Google says, "Search engines are controllers of personal data. Google can therefore not escape its responsibilities before European law when handling personal data by saying it is a search engine. EU data protection law applies and so does the right to be forgotten."
Since most websites that share personal information are based in the U.S., European governments are expecting the US-based tech companies to be more vigilant in taking steps to stop terrorism in its tracks.
"Just because the vast majority of this content is found on American services doesn't reduce their impact on French people. We won't succeed in our fight against terrorism unless Internet actors start taking responsibility," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière echoed Cazeneuve's statement, saying that these companies should make the necessary steps to play a crucial role in battling terrorism. If not, he said the legislators should be forced to take the initiative.
But there is a different side to the story. According to the WSJ, Europe once led the technology race. But with new tech companies springing out of the Silicon Valley and dominating each and every market there is to dominate, European tech companies were left behind.
