We have been working hard at GIFCT to make sure the organization is ready for a new phase, reflected in the 2025-2027 Strategic Plan that was just adopted by our Operating Board this summer. As a tech-led initiative working closely with a diverse and global multistakeholder community, it is important that GIFCT be prepared not just to support its expanded membership community, but also to ensure they can prevent and respond to emerging and evolving threats and opportunities. As technologies emerge and societies adapt, so too do adversarial actors, who have often sought to exploit digital platforms for propaganda, recruitment, and operational purposes.
Terrorist and violent extremist (TVE)groups are no longer necessarily organized in terms of identifiable organizations, but are increasingly diffused, decentralized – and, in some cases, even absent, as we see more individuals radicalize and mobilize without formal group or ideological affiliations.
It is therefore critical that even as GIFCT aims to expand and diversify its membership, it continues to ensure its activities and impacts are informed by global experts dynamics, and reflects lessons learned by industry and practitioners.
Strategic aims & objectives
Over the next three years, the new Strategic Plan provides a roadmap for GIFCT to build on the strong foundations that have been created and aims to:
Support and strengthen a collaborative tech-led multistakeholder community to develop and share cross-platform solutions and support, facilitate information sharing and knowledge exchange, and deliver on incident response, to inform industry efforts to prevent the exploitation of digital platforms and respond to TVE events with significant online aspects; and
Enhance the collective capacities and capability of the tech industry and its partners and support them to adapt to a dynamic threat environment, including by connecting industry to expertise and regional stakeholders; delivering curated and action-oriented analysis, recommendations, and activities; fostering a network of expert partnerships; and ensuring that GIFCT members are well placed to respond to terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC) online.
Strengthen and diversify a global approach to delivering on GIFCT’s mission and foster a diverse community of GIFCT member companies reflective of the evolving threat landscape and a global perspective drawn from a multistakeholder community that includes industry, government, and civil society representatives.
To achieve these goals, our 2025-2027 Strategic Plan sets out several core objectives and indicators to help us ensure we keep moving towards these goals even as events and crises will also require us to pause and ensure we can be responsive to developments on the ground.
Multistakeholder Community
Our multistakeholder community includes:
- Tech companies
- Academics
- Practitioners
- Civil society organizations
- Governments
- United Nations
- European Union
Their views and perspectives help us ensure that our activities are reflective of real-world dynamics and threats, and that we foster truly collaborative tech solutions.
Membership Growth
Since 2017, our membership has grown from four to over thirty technology platforms. Each company brings their own unique challenges and solutions, strengthening our collective capacities and ability to better understand and counter TVE trends across platforms. Diversity in membership can be seen in terms of the types of technology companies coming to the table, the geography of platforms – with 20% of GIFCT members being based outside the US, and the size of platforms joining – reminding us that bad actors try to exploit online tools from platforms large and small.
Hash Sharing Database (HSDB)
The Hash Sharing Database (HSDB) continues to be a critical tool in the fight against TVE online. GIFCT’s Hash-Sharing Database enables GIFCT member companies to quickly identify, and share signals, of terrorist and violent extremist activity in a secure, efficient and privacy-protecting manner. Members are sharing signals about terrorist content they have identified on their platform so that other members can quickly identify if the same content is shared on their platform and assess it in line with their policies and terms of service. It remains the only tool that enables cross-platform storage and sharing of hashed TVEC in the technology sector. GIFCT is taking a proactive approach in future-proofing the HSDB by embracing AI safety tools and re-examining our HSDB inclusion parameters which already include synthetic content produced by TVE actors. Although GIFCT is interested in exploring additional signals beyond hashed content: hashing is the most tested and effective means for sharing signals across companies. This means as long as user generated TVEC remains an issue, hashing will continue to produce value for our members.
Commitment to GIFCT’s Mission
The adoption of the new Strategic Plan by our Operating Board reflects the strong continued commitment to GIFCT’s evergreen mission, to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms. Drawing on consultations with our members, our Independent Advisory Committee, and stakeholders, the new plan sets out an approach that provides both structure and flexibility, and a common understanding about what is needed to ensure the support and resources required by our members. We look forward to working together to strengthen and support industry efforts to prevent, respond and adapt to evolving terrorist threats and their online implications.
Join Us
Interested in becoming part of a collaborative community working to prevent and respond to the exploitation of digital platforms by terrorists and violent extremists? Become a GIFCT member today and contribute to a safer digital world.
