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Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May has called out the internet and "internet based services" for providing terrorists with a safe space to hide in a statement following Saturday night's terror attack in London."We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," she said to press outside of Number 10. "Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide."On Saturday night at around 10pm BST a van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge, one of the city's most iconic landmarks and a tourist hotspot. Three attackers then exited the vehicle and, armed with knives and fake bomb vests, attacked pedestrians. As it stands, security services say seven people have lost their lives and 48 more are injured.After a meeting of Britain's emergency crisis committee COBRA, May argued in her speech that the UK needs to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that "regulate cyberspace" to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning."We need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online," she said. "We need to deprive the extremists of safe spaces online."Regulating online services has been a mainstay of Theresa May and the Conservative government's strategy in office. May was instrumental as Home Secretary and then Prime Minister is introducing the Investigatory Powers Act—a bill that will see the government enforce wide-ranging powers to snoop on the internet activities of Britain's citizens. May and her supporters, including current Home Secretary Amber Rudd, have also been vocal opponents of encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp.But the government's plans to ban end-to-end encrypted messaging services fell through after much criticism from rights and privacy campaigners. Those plans are likely to be on the table again soon though, after May puts technology in the forefront of her focus to battle terror, and after Britain suffers its third terror attack in just three months.Subscribe to Science Solved It, Motherboard's new show about the greatest mysteries that were solved by science.
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