The European Commission is set to pursue a crackdown on the spread of online terrorist content and disinformation, its president Jean-Claude Junker announced in his state of the union address on Wednesday (12 September). The commission’s proposal to regulate against online terrorist content includes a ‘one-hour’ rule for the removal of offending material as well as strong penalties for non-abiding service providers. The Counter Extremism Project has highlighted concerns about the fact that the rule is only applicable after the time in which a removal order is issued and not from the time that the offending content is uploaded. “Reliable enforcement and automated technology so that content can be taken down within one hour of upload needs to be included in the proposed draft,” said David Ibsen, executive director of the organisation.