Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged the United States to do more to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on social media, hours after the group took responsibility for a deadly terror attack in Brussels.
“We’ve got to take them on on the Internet,” Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “You can put walls around your country, but you don’t keep out the Internet. And that has been a major tool for radicalizing, recruiting, propagandizing that ISIS is quite sophisticated at using.”
{mosads}Clinton’s statement included a veiled jab at Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who suggested the United States should close up its borders following the coordinated bombings in Brussels that left more than 30 people dead and over 230 wounded.
Clinton, a former secretary of State, also said the U.S. needs to defeat the group on the ground and help shut off the flow of foreign fighters and funds in Iraq and Syria. She called for other countries to coordinate with the United States more closely on intelligence and law enforcement.
In an interview on ABC, Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders also said the U.S. needs “effective monitoring of social media.”
The U.S. and allies have long worried about ISIS’s presence on social media, which has allowed the group to spread its message and recruit followers.
Similar calls were made following last year’s attacks in Paris and the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.
The White House has held a series of meeting with social media and other technology companies to discuss ways to thwart terror organizations’ use of social media and to elevate countering views.
Companies like Twitter and Facebook have been more vocal in publicizing their efforts. In February, Twitter announced that it has suspended more than 125,000 accounts that either promote or threatened terror. However, they have resisted legislation that would require Internet companies monitor their platforms for terrorist activity and report it to the government.