The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed the “Combat Terrorist Use of Social Media Act of 2016” on Wednesday, which was co-sponsored by U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA).
“I want to thank both Chairman Johnson and Senator Booker for working with me on this bill,” Ernst said. “This will require the Obama administration to fulfill a promise that they made back in 2011 to develop a comprehensive strategy to counter and prevent violent extremism and online radicalization. So while President Obama continues to lack a comprehensive overall strategy to defeat ISIS, this legislation will ensure he must at least present a strategy to address its use of social media to spread terror.”
The act requires the president to prepare a report on the use of social media by terrorists organizations and an evaluation of the current government efforts to combat such use, as well as a comprehensive strategy to counter terrorists’ use of social media.
The bipartisan legislation is a companion to H.R. 3654, introduced by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-NY), and passed by the House in December.