Transparency reporting on terrorist and violent extremist content online 2022

This is the third benchmarking report tracking the evolution of online content-sharing services’ policies and procedures for terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC). Fifteen of the top 50 most popular services now issue TVEC-specific transparency reports, increasing from five in 2020 and eleven in 2021. This edition also examines the 50 services that disseminate the most TVEC (“Intensive Services”). Only eleven services appear in both groups, reflecting that bad actors are shifting to smaller services as the larger ones strengthen TVEC moderation. Only eight Intensive Services currently issue TVEC-specific transparency reports, thirteen have no prohibition on TVEC and seventeen provide no information at all. The findings also suggest that services size and encryption are not insurmountable barriers to transparency reporting. It remains difficult to obtain an industry-wide perspective on the impact of companies’ measures against TVEC. Finally, regulatory fragmentation is worsening as more jurisdictions are implementing disparate transparency requirements. Previous benchmarking reports: “Transparency reporting on terrorist and violent extremist content online: An update on the global top 50 content sharing” (2021); “Current approaches to terrorist and violent extremist content among the global top 50 online content-sharing services” (2020).