Some of the United States' largest social media platforms are working together to create a database of terrorist content. The collaborative project includes Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and the Google-owned YouTube, with the goal to create a searchable pool of data consisting of the imagery and videos used by terrorist organisations to recruit people. 

Facebook recently detailed the partnership in a blog post. "Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube are coming together to help curb the spread of terrorist content online. There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies."

The companies in question created a similar collaborative project to curb child pornography last year, with this new effort using similar methods. With Google, for example, users’ emails were scanned for any content that pertained to child pornography. 

If either of the companies finds content worthy of being flagged on their respective platforms, the content will not immediately be pulled, but rather go through a review process before action is taken. As The Verge points out, the European Union has placed substantial pressure on social media platforms to root out any terrorist propaganda, and this new initiative is a step towards that.