The four tech giants have chaired the consortium since announcing it in 2016, when Western governments chastised them for allowing Islamic State to release gruesome videos of beheaded journalists and aid workers. Now with a staff of eight, GIFCT, which the board organized as an American nonprofit in 2019 after the Christchurch massacre, is one of the groups through which tech competitors must work together to address discreet online damage, including child abuse and the illicit trade of intimate images.
The efforts have helped remove some unwanted content, and flagging the work can help companies avoid burdensome regulations. But the politics involved in managing the consortia generally remain secret.
Only eight of GIFCT’s 25 member companies responded to WIRED’s requests for comment. Respondents, which included Meta, Microsoft and YouTube, say they are proud to be part of what they consider a valuable group. The consortium’s executive director, Naureen Chowdhury Fink, did not dispute WIRED’s reporting. She says TikTok is still in the process of gaining membership.
GIFCT has trusted It relies on voluntary contributions from its members to fund the approximately $4 million it spends annually, which covers salaries, research and travel. From 2020 to 2022, Microsoft, Google and Meta each donated a sum of at least $4 million and Twitter $600,000. according to available public files. Some other companies contributed tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but most paid nothing.
Last year, at least two board members were furious at companies they perceived as freeloaders, and fears spread among the nonprofit’s staff that their jobs were in jeopardy. It didn’t help that when Musk converted Twitter to X about a year ago, he continued to cut costs, including suspending the company’s optional controls for GIFCT, according to two people with direct knowledge.
To diversify funding, the board approved applying to foundations and even exploring government grants for complementary projects. “We would really have to carefully consider whether it makes sense,” says Chowdhury Fink. “But sometimes it’s helpful to work with multiple stakeholders.”
Human rights activists the group consulted privately questioned whether this would count as subsidies to tech giants, which could divert resources from potentially more potent counter-extremism projects. But records show that staff were considering applying for a grant of more than tens of thousands of dollars from the pro-Israel philanthropy Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust. Chowdhury Fink says GIFCT didn’t end up applying.
This year, Meta, YouTube, Microsoft and
Paying members will be able to vote for two seats on the board of directors, it says. Eligibility to serve on the board is dependent on making a larger gift. X had signaled that he would not pay and would therefore lose his seat, two sources say, something that ended up happening this month. It was planned to have tie-breaking power between the board of directors of the four companies in 2025 (under the statutes, Meta, YouTube and Microsoft could have kicked Twitter off the board as soon as Musk acquired the company. But they decided not to exercise the power of tiebreaker between the board of directors of the four companies in 2025). force.)