Jacinda Ardern today announced what she said was significant progress in implementing the Christchurch Call to Action - her effort to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
The Prime Minister is in New York, joining other world leaders at the annual United Nations General Assembly.
In the four months since the attack, “real strides” had been made to prevent and respond to the harm caused by terrorist and violent extremist content online, she said.
The PM met with her British and American counterparts, as well as with key leaders from the tech industry.
In a speech today, Ms Ardern outlined developments made to the Christchurch Call, in partnership with other governments.
Among the notable changes, she said, was an overhaul to the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to make it an independent body that will drive much of the tech sector’s work on implementing the scheme.
Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron chaired the Christchurch Call summit in Paris.
"The new standalone Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism will have a dedicated structure and staff to more capably carry out the business of disrupting terrorist and violent extremist use of member platforms and to engage with smaller platforms to assist them do the same," Ms Ardern said.
“Its mission now encompasses violent extremist content online – not just terrorist content. And it will have working groups focused on research, on algorithms, and on data privacy and information sharing."
Alongside this is the development of a new crisis response protocol - described by Ms Ardern as a “priority out of Paris” - to be used by governments and tech companies to coordinate and to manage the online impacts of terrorist attacks.
“I don’t want any other country to be placed in the situation New Zealand was in the minutes, hours and days after the attack in Christchurch, when we were left scrambling to respond to and remove live-streamed hate,” said Ms Ardern.
Danny O’Brien is an activist for online free speech and privacy based in San Franscisco.
“I am pleased to say today that this crisis response protocol is ready to deploy."
Ms Ardern said Google will host a testing exercise in New Zealand in December to help bring all stakeholders to a better state of readiness in the event of a future attack.
She said she "acknowledged the work and leadership of the tech companies in getting us to this point”.
Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron chaired the summit.
Ms Ardern also welcomed, alongside President Macron, a range of new partners to the Christchurch Call - 31 new countries and two organisations, bringing the total to 48 countries and three international organisations.
"We remain committed to protecting human rights, including both freedom of expression but also the rights of the victims of terrorism," Ms Ardern said. "And we are committed to a free, open and secure internet."
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