Baku, November 13, AZERTAC
Fifty nations and over 150 tech companies pledged to do more to fight criminal activity on the internet, including interference in elections and hate speech. But the United States, Russia and China are not among them.
The group of governments and companies pledged in a document entitled the "Paris call for trust and security in cyberspace" to work together to prevent malicious activities like online censorship and the theft of trade secrets.
The push is supported by EU countries, Japan and Canada as well as tech giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft, among others.
French President Emmanuel Macron had pushed for the initiative, whose unveiling comes a day after dozens of world leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday for the centenary of the end of World War One.
Speaking at the Internet Governance Forum organized at the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Macron said it's urgent to better regulate the internet.
The French leader also said that Facebook had accepted to let a team of French officials observe the way it monitors and removes hate speech content.