Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says global efforts to reduce online terrorist content have seen significant progress under the Christchurch Call.
But an online extremism expert has rubbished those claims, saying he can still find 20 versions of the Christchurch mosque attack video on Facebook and Instagram.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron - who spearheaded the Christchurch Call - said a stocktake undertaken by France and New Zealand showed significant global progress for reducing online terrorist content.
After the Christchurch terror attack on March 15, 2019, Ardern established the Christchurch Call - a voluntary commitment from governments and online platforms intended to thwart terrorist and violent extremist content online.
"The focus of the Christchurch Call community must be on making tangible progress, and the findings from the stocktake report are promising," Ardern said.
"It remains important that Call supporters keep delivering on substance while protecting a free, open, and secure internet and respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms," Macron added.
Ardern said notable progress had been made to make it harder for those pushing extremist content online.
But the Prime Minister said there's still more to be done.
"We must continue to work towards better understanding the algorithms that promote content online, to identify intervention points and prevent exploitation by malicious actors.
"While our progress in the first year has been good there is still more work to do," said Ardern.
"The more tech platforms there are committed to implementing the commitments of the Call, the stronger we will be collectively in limiting the use of the internet by terrorists to plan and spread their hate - and preventing terrorist acts from happening in the first place," added Macron.
But speaking from the US on Wednesday, Coalition for a Safer Web vice president Eric Feinberg slammed the Christchurch Call as an utter failure.
There have been multiple examples of the initiative failing already this year, he said - including the US Capitol riots in January.
"The Capitol insurrection - which was promoted by white supremacy - is a great example of these platforms being used to spread hate so, no, it's not working," Feinberg told The AM Show.
He said more needs to be done to keep web users safe.
"I can go on Facebook and Instagram and find 20 versions, still, of the raw video of the Christchurch [terror attack] - including in Arabic and some in Russian.
"Then you go deeper - you can find ISIS videos [and] ISIS posts on Instagram.
"Because I'm researching it, Instagram's algorithms are actually suggesting to me to follow ISIS accounts and videos."
But back home, Internet New Zealand's Jordan Carter told Newshub the Christchurch Call is making huge steps in the right direction.
"You can celebrate the fact this has made some difference and continues to make more of a difference in the future."
Ardern and Macron said the Christchurch Call had led to the establishment of three crisis response protocols, that "enable a rapid and coordinated response to online events between governments and companies".
