House Foreign Affairs Clears Combat Terrorist Use of Social Media Act

The House Foreign Affairs Committee cleared the Combat Terrorist Use of Social Media Act (HR-3654) Wednesday on a voice vote. The bill would require the Obama administration to develop a more “comprehensive strategy” to counter foreign terrorist groups’ use of social media and to enhance “the exchange of information and dialogue” between the federal government and social media companies on terrorists’ social media usage. The State Department’s “current strategy of countering ISIS and other terrorist groups online obviously isn’t working,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., one of HR-3654’s lead sponsors. He said Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube “have a responsibility to make sure their platforms aren’t being used by terrorists.” Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, HR-3654’s other lead sponsor, credited Facebook and YouTube with doing a “pretty good job of bringing down” terrorist-related content, but noted less satisfaction with Twitter’s response. Companies’ efforts to take down terrorist content “won’t work effectively if [the State Department] isn’t identifying the bad content,” Sherman said. “The only thing worse than whack-a-mole is to not whack the moles.” House Foreign Affairs’ approval of HR-3654 came a day after Senate Intelligence Committee leaders reintroduced the Requiring Reporting of Online Terrorist Activity Act, which would require tech companies to report such activity to law enforcement agencies. The bill’s text had previously been part of Senate Intelligence’s annual intelligence authorization bill but was later removed (see 1512080070).