Aotearoa New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and French President, Emmanuel Macron, jointly chaired a virtual summit on the second anniversary of the Christchurch Call, on 15 May 2021.
The summit brought together leaders of governments, tech companies, and representatives of civil society from the Christchurch Call community.
Building on two years of collective effort to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, the summit’s aim was to endorse a forward work plan into 2022.
Because of COVID-19, the summit was the first opportunity for leaders to meet since September 2019.
With 34 governments, eight companies, and 30 civil society organisations represented, the summit reinforced political, technical, and wider support for the Christchurch Call.
As new supporters have come on board, the Call community has grown to include 55 governments, the European Commission, two international organisations, 10 online service providers, and a dedicated advisory network of academics and civil society organisations.
Leaders from all sectors acknowledged progress on Call commitments, with Prime Minister Ardern and President Macron recapping key achievements such as:
- improved crisis response by companies
- the relaunch of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism as an independent non-government organisation, supporting a broad spectrum of multi-stakeholder activity on Call priorities
- helping to drive progress in other international initiatives, such as the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), G20 and Aqaba Process.
Government, industry and civil society participants alike renewed their commitment to the Call, with widespread endorsement of its unique, unifying vision, achieved through a multi-stakeholder approach.
The forward work plan focuses on:
- building a self-sustaining, capable and more diverse Call community
- updating and strengthening collective crisis-response capability
- improving transparency and reporting
- building understanding of how algorithms, at-risk internet users, and extremist networks interact on the path to radicalisation, so that ways can be collectively found to intervene positively.