In collaboration with Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and INTERPOL, Europol coordinated a two-day joint operation, during which 1 628 pieces of terrorist and violent extremist online content were assessed for the purpose of referral to online platforms. The activities focused mainly on the online production of terrorist material by IS and al-Qaeda affiliated media outlets. The processed content had been hosted by 38 online platforms. A particular finding of this operation was the identification of terrorist content on the Darknet i.e. links to open web shared on designated Darknet libraries. Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU), composed of specialists, analysts, translators and counter-terrorism experts, teamed up with their counterparts to coordinate a swift removal of propagandistic terrorist messages present on the internet. The final removal of the referred material is a voluntary activity carried out by the concerned service providers, in accordance with their own terms and conditions.
