Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow, what action they are taking to restrict access to websites that espouse extremism in Pakistan.

The tragic murder of Asad Shah demonstrated the powerful influence of extremist online content. In the UK, the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) is responsible for the referral of terrorist-related content to online communication service providers (CSPs) for removal. Upon receipt of a referral, CSPs remove material on a voluntary basis where it breaches their terms and conditions.

Referrals made to CSPs by CTIRU have led to over 160,000 pieces of terrorist-related content being removed to date world-wide, including websites, user accounts and videos. Overall, removals at the request of CTIRU have increased from around 60 items a month in 2010, when CTIRU was first established, to over 4,000 a month in 2016.