French President Emmanuel Macron has confirmed that Twitter will continue to participate in the Christchurch Call, after meeting with the company’s new CEO Elon Musk.
Macron met with Musk during his visit to the US, where the company’s continued participation in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Christchurch Call came up.
“Elon Musk confirmed the Twitter’s participation to the Christchurch Call,” Macron wrote on Twitter on Saturday (NZT).
“There is no place for terrorist and violent extremist content anywhere.”
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The confirmation comes amid concerns over the direction of Twitter, after billionaire Musk took control of it in October.
Musk quickly shook up things at the company, drastically cutting staff numbers.
Last month, Ardern said it was too early to know whether NZ’s world-leading work with Twitter to combat violent extremism online would continue.
“We know how important it is to continue to address terrorism and violent extremism from the perspective of advertisers, so if that’s the motivation, then my hope is the work will continue,” she said at the time.
International media has reported that far right groups previously banned from the platform were able to open new accounts after Musk’s takeover.
And in November, clips from the video from the Christchurch mosque attacks were uploaded to Twitter. It failed to detect them as harmful.
Ardern has made stopping violent extremism online a signature issue in the wake of the March 15 terror attacks, when worshippers at two Christchurch mosques were shot during their prayers.
The gunman shot and killed 51 people, streaming the mass shooting online.
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Macron met with Musk during his visit to the US.
In the weeks after the 2019 terror attack, Ardern – with French president Emmanuel Macron – led a Christchurch Call to Action leaders summit in 2019.
More than 120 countries and international organisations have supported the call, including the United States, which joined last year. It means they have signed up to 24 voluntary calls to action.
In September, Ardern announced funding for new research into how algorithms affect people’s online experiences, the first project under the Christchurch Call.
