Christchurch Call — Governments and Platforms Commit to Remove "Extremist" Content Without Judicial Oversight
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron launched the Christchurch Call in Paris — a joint government-platform commitment to eliminate "terrorist and violent extremist content" online. Signatories included major platforms (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft) and 17 governments. The Call established no independent judicial oversight mechanism, no appeals process, and left content classification to a combination of government pressure and platform discretion. Critics including the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned the Call's vague definitions — "violent extremist content" was never precisely defined — created a framework governments could use to pressure platforms into removing legitimate political speech, journalism, and historical documentation under counter-terrorism framing. The US government notably declined to sign, with the Trump administration citing First Amendment concerns.