14 DAY TRIAL // The British Prime Minister is once more asking for the world to start regulating the Internet in order to fight against terrorism.
Following the terror attack that took place on the London Bridge last week, Theresa May has taken it upon herself to ask for the introduction of new rules for cyberspace, rules that would deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online.
"We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed - yet that is precisely what the Internet, and the big companies that provide Internet-based services provide," May said. "We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach International agreements to regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning."
While this isn't the first time she has made a call for international cooperation, it's not the first time she has attacked Internet companies for providing people with free access to content. Following an earlier terror attack, she slammed Facebook's WhatsApp for providing end-to-end encryption to users because the local law enforcement could not see the attacker's latest messages.
Censorship and backdoors
This opposition to a free Internet and to encryption seems to spread like wildfire among Conservatives from both sides of the Ocean who would like nothing more than to see the Internet censored and backdoors created for law enforcement.
Regulating the Internet is close to impossible, even as Google and Facebook and other companies are working to somehow block and take down extremist content. Similarly, creating backdoors into encryption services would put everyone at risk because it means those apps and devices could be cracked by more than just the Police or the FBI in case of an incident.
May's call for even more action from tech companies comes after she helped introduce the Investigatory Powers Act last year, which is also dubbed as the "Snooper's Charter." Basically, this act expands the powers British spy agencies and the government have over the Internet, demanding ISPs to maintain a list of visited websites for all Internet users for at least a year, records that can be accessed by the Police without any warrant or court order.