Moderating Extremism: The State of Online Terrorist Content Removal Policy in the United States

By Bennett Clifford

By reviewing studies of how today’s terrorist and extremist groups operate on social media in conjunction with an overview of U.S. government regulation of terrorist content online, this report finds that stricter U.S. regulation of social media providers may not be the most effective method of combating online terrorist and extremist content.

Specifically:

• Direct governmental regulations that ignore other sources of regulation on content removal policies could disrupt growing intra-industry collaboration on countering terrorist content online.

• In many regards, the U.S. government defers to and depends on the private sector to conduct counterterrorism online. Many factors contribute to this arrangement, including limits on the government’s authorities, expertise, staffpower, dexterity and political will to manage online terrorist content with the same efficacy as major social media companies.

• Attempts by other governments to strictly regulate social media companies’ terrorist content removal policies hurt small companies, created double standards and redundancies, and raised concerns about censorship and free speech.

• Proposed regulations may only affect major U.S. social media providers; smaller and non-U.S. companies may be unable, unwilling, or not required to comply. Due to the proliferation of social media platforms exploited by terrorists and extremists, platforms that may be unaffected by U.S. government regulation currently host a large proportion of terrorist content online.

• In certain regards, major social media companies’ content removal policies have more flexibility than the U.S. government to be able to account for new terrorist and extremist groups and actors and their respective tactics, techniques, and procedures online.

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2021. 24p.