Staff & Research Areas
Working Groups
Illegal Internet content study
Researcher: Johnny Ryan
This project will influence the future direction of European telecoms regulation. It may also influence counter terrorism strategy. It has three objectives:
- Analyse the current practices among official and private initiatives in Member States to deal with illegal content on the Internet;
- Examine, based on the present state of the art in understanding militant content and its use of online services, which non-legislative measures are most appropriate and relevant to violent radical content in particular;
- Suggest concrete and feasible non-legislative measures against violent radical content (drawn from best among current transferable practice and possible new initiatives or adapted measures) that can be legally and economically transferred across the EU, and might support a European alert platform.
The overall objective is to perform a study to recommend the most practical, economic, and appropriate non-legislative measures against violent radical content to the European Commission DG FSJ in August 2010.
(please download and comment on these documents)
1 May 2010
Internet access controls: Three Strikes ‘graduated response’ initiatives
Author: Johnny Ryan and Caitriona Heinl (PDF doc), 19 pages
12 April 2010
Brief Discussion note on the possible effects (alienation, deterrence, intelligence loss) of measures against violent radical content (PDF)
Author: Tim Stevens
11 February 2010
Brief discussion note on the difficulty of identifying violent radical content on the Internet (PDF)
Author: Gilbert Ramsay
22 December 2009
RFC 2 - Initial (basic) overview of measures against illegal content on the Internet in all 27 EU Member States.
Authors: Johnny Ryan, Caitriona Heinl, Oisin Suttle, Gilbert Ramsay, Tim Stevens
17 December 2009
RFC 1 - Overview of the legal environment regulating child abuse, hatred and racism, copyright infringement, and terrorist content on the Internet.
Author: Oisin Suttle (PDF doc), 55 pages
Workshops/events:
27 November 2009
Principal Investigator's statement at the European Commission, inviting industry, NGOs, and national law enforcement and governments to participate (Word doc)
Author: Johnny Ryan
15 December 2009
Seminar on measures against cyber hate on the Internet (video to be uploaded shortly)
Speakers: Suzette Bronkhorst, Secretary-General of INACH (International Network Against Cyber Hate), and Ronald Eissens, founderof MDI, the Dutch Internet Discrimination Hotline. The workshop was chaired by Nora Owen, former Minister for Justice. [transcript of entire event]
17 December 2009
Seminar on measures for child protection on the Internet (video to be uploaded shortly)
Speaker: Adrian Dwyer, Secretary General of INHOPE. The workshop was chaired by Nora Owen, former Minister for Justice. [transcript of entire event]
27 January 2010
Stakeholders' consultation, hosted by Yahoo!
24 February 2010
ISPs discussion meeting
2 March 2010
Stakeholders' consultation, hosted by EDiMA (European Digital Media Association)
4/5 March 2010
Stakeholders' consultations, hosted by Open Rights Group
Background materials:
Countering Militant Islamist Radicalisation on the Internet: A User Driven Strategy to Recover the Web, IIEA, 2007,pp 166, ISBN: 1-874-109-86-9. [Google books link]
Commission staff working document accompanying document to the proposal for a council framework decision amending Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA on combating terrorism impact assessment
Terms of Reference for this project
The guiding principle of the project is established in the Terms of Reference:
The study should, based on empirical data, assess the efficiency of the methods described above in order to prevent or combat the dissemination of illegal content through the Internet. The bidder may use, for this purpose, data obtained in fields such as racist content and child abuse images, where sustained efforts in the last years might provide for more extensive and conclusive information. As regards complaint hotlines, the study should, in particular, analyse the progress made under INACH, INHOPE and official complaints hotlines managed by law enforcement authorities.
Note on definition of violent radicalisation:
Following the kick off meeting between the principal investigator and members of DG FSJ on 11 November it was agreed to use the definition provided in the Proposal for a Council Framework Decision amending Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA.
For the purposes of this Framework Decision:
A. "public provocation to commit a terrorist offence" means the distribution, or otherwise making available, of a message to the public, with the intent to incite the commission of one of the offences listed in Article 1(1)(a) to (h), where such conduct, whether or not directly advocating terrorist offences, causes a danger that one or more such offences may be committed;
B. "recruitment for terrorism" means to solicit another person to commit one of the offences listed in Article 1(1) (a) to (h), or in Article 2(2);
C. "training for terrorism" means to provide instruction in the making or use of explosives, firearms or other weapons or noxious or hazardous substances, or in other specific methods or techniques, for the purpose of committing one of the offences listed in Article 1(1)
(a) to (h), knowing that the skills provided are intended to be used for this purpose.
Johnny Ryan
Senior Researcher
Illegal Internet content study