The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) is an Internet industry initiative to share proprietary information and technology for automated content moderation.[1][2]
Founded in 2017 by a consortium of companies spearheaded by Facebook (now known as Meta), Google/YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter, it was created as an organization in 2019 and its membership has expanded to include 18 companies as of the end of 2021.[3] The GIFCT began as a shared hash database of ISIS-related material but expanded to included a wider array of violent extremist content in the wake of the attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that was live streamed on Facebook.[4]
GIFCT maintains a database of perceptual hashes of terrorism-related videos and images that is submitted by its members, and which other members can voluntarily use to block the same material on their platforms.[5] The material indexed includes images, videos and will be expanded to include URLs and textual data such as manifestos and other documents.[6]
GIFCT has been flagged by civil society activists and scholars as a "content cartel" similar to YouTube's Content ID,[1] and a potential tool for "cross-platform censorship".[2]
Accusations of misuse
In 2022, Facebook, Inc., a subsidiary of Meta Platforms, was subject to a subpoena about GIFCT usage as OnlyFans was alleged to have used GIFCT to harm competitors by getting their content and accounts censored on Instagram.[10] Facebook and OnlyFans have described these allegations as being "without merit".[11]
