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Trump Administration Won’t Sign International Pact to Stop Online Extremism

The decision puts the U.S. at odds with Google and Facebook, which are expected to support the “Christchurch call to action.”

The White House will not sign on to an international agreement to fight online extremism created after the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, which killed 51 people. The agreement, named the “Christchurch call to action,” was brokered by world leaders in Paris, France, and calls on governments and social-media companies to improve their efforts to study and stop the spread of hateful content. The U.S. has said it won’t join in the call to action due to concerns over free-speech protections. U.S. officials said they stand “with the international community in condemning terrorist and violent extremist content online,” and support the goals of the agreement. But the White House said in a statement it is “not currently in a position to join the endorsement.” The decision puts the United States at odds with U.S. tech giants Facebook and Google, which are expected to support the effort. “... We maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech,” the White House said in a statement.