If CleanIT has its way, ISPs and web hosts will agree to a voluntary set of guidelines to “reduce terrorist use of the Internet.” FHKE BRUSSELS, BELGIUM—During the last two years, CleanIT, the European Commission-funded project group to “reduce terrorist use of the Internet,” has met on a regular basis trying to come up with a set of voluntary general principles to achieve that vague goal. Earlier this month, the group published its “final report,” in which it called for a “flag this as terrorism” content button in your browser. On Wednesday, I moderated the final symposium—my travel and lodging was paid for out of the project’s €326,000 ($442,000) budget. An assembled crowd (including a few Ars readers!) of around 50 people came together at a European Parliament-adjacent hotel in downtown Brussels to hear from various speakers from government, academia, and civil society across Europe. After hours of talks, it remained quite vague if or how CleanIT would move forward given its two-year funding had come to a close. Most speakers seemed mainly interested in thanking the Dutch officials leading the effort and in presenting more questions than answers. Whether or not the project’s voluntary “best practices”—which include a (possibly browser-based) “user-friendly flagging…

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EU plan to voluntarily remove “terrorist content” finally concludes