UK looking to increase pressure on internet firms over extremist material

Britain is looking at range of options to put pressure on internet companies to do more to take down extremist material, Security Minister Ben Wallace said on Sunday.

The government has previously complained technology companies are not doing enough to tackle the use of their networks both to promote extremist ideology and for communication between militant suspects.

"We are going to look at the range of options. We have seen the Germans have proposed perhaps a fine, we are not sure whether that is going to work but there are range of pressures we can put on to some of these companies," Wallace told BBC Television.

"We think they have the technology and the capability to change the algorithms they use," he said, adding that one issue was the way the companies linked posts to other similar material online.

Wallace said some companies were "being difficult" but there was evidence that others were trying to improve their work on the issue.