ISD

Digital policy is central to ISD’s mission to create societies that are resilient to hate and extremism. For over a decade, ISD has used our position as an independent expert organisation to convene governments, tech companies and researchers to generate coordinated responses to these issues.

The first of these networks was the Policy Planners Network on Countering Radicalisation and Extremism (PPN) which ran from 2008 – 2019 and delivered 19 international events. As governments began the process of developing national action plans to prevent violent extremism, the PPN provided valuable resources and expertise to enable nations to better tackle the emerging challenges they faced – from the reintegration of foreign fighters, to the rise of far right violence and hate speech.

Facilitated by ISD, the PPN worked to upgrade and coordinate the strategies of its 12 governmental members through sharing of information and best practice for designing and implementing policies in countering extremism. The PPN Network included representation from government agencies in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Norway and Victoria State (Australia). The network also cooperated with the European Commission and the Counter-terrorism Coordinator (CTC) at the Council of the EU.

The PPN finished its operations in 2019, as it became clear that the resources and expertise governments require was changing in light of the changing threat. To better respond to this shift, in 2020 ISD established the Digital Policy Lab (DPL): an international working group focused on policies to prevent and counter disinformation, hate speech, extremism and terrorism online.

Comprised of a core group of national-level representatives of key governments, the Digital Policy Lab (DPL) will provide expertise on a range of online security threats and harms, and a forum to develop shared objectives on digital policy for key stakeholders from across ministries and government and international agencies. The DPL will bring ISD’s unique expertise, research and recommendations to drive the digital policy debate forward.

We believe the DPL will provide a valuable mechanism for follow up to the Christchurch Call, an agile accompaniment to the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism efforts, as well as an important interface between governments and the GIFCT.