Terrorists and violent extremists exploit online content-sharing services to conduct a wide range of activities, from incitement, radicalisation and recruitment, to training, planning, sharing instructions and financing. Such activities have led to several attacks over the past years, such as those in Christchurch (New Zealand), Baerum (Norway), Halle (Germany), Buffalo (USA), and Bratislava (Slovakia).

The information and data needed to understand the nature, extent and scope of the TVEC threat are scattered, opaque and largely in the hands of the private sector. A more organised and robust evidence base is necessary to better inform policymaking on TVEC and to derive the most effective policies for countering it.

Although it may seem intuitive that TVEC can be countered most effectively by focusing on the largest content-sharing services, OECD research shows that the majority of services that terrorist and violent extremists use most intensively to propagate TVEC are not among the 50 largest. These TVEC-intensive services also tend to be less transparent about their TVEC policies and moderation efforts. Among the 50 most TVEC-intensive services, only 8 issued transparency reports on TVEC in 2022. Therefore, policy makers and other stakeholders would do well to widen their lens to cover these services, as well.  

Every content-sharing service, has a role to play in the fight against TVEC, from prohibiting it in their terms of service to deploying effective means to detect and remove it, while safeguarding fundamental rights and freedoms. They can also help by issuing transparency reports about the TVEC that shows up on their services and how they address it.

OECD research shows that the transparency reports on TVEC that were issued by online content-sharing services in 2022 reported widely varying categories of metrics, used different definitions and methodologies and covered different timeframes. This makes data aggregation and cross-platform comparisons difficult, if not impossible. Adopting common transparency reporting standards would not only enable better analysis but would reduce costs for the private sector, as multiple jurisdictions are now enacting fragmented reporting requirements.