Why Theresa May is pointing the finger at American tech giants

After the 9/11 attacks, Tony Blair traced the jihadi menace to the problem of ungoverned spaces, like Afghanistan. In her speech after the London Bridge attacks today, Theresa May used similar language to describe cyberspace. “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed,” she said. “Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide”. What could she have in mind? Not the dark web: that’s notorious but it’s beyond the (current) ability of government to regulate or remedy.

I suspect that the “big companies” she has in mind will be the likes of Facebook, Google, Skype and Apple etc: US-based companies who have long frustrated British spies for their reluctance to co-operate with UK investigations. Even though millions of Brits use their services, the UK authorities have no direct authority over them. Frustration with this situation has been growing over recent years.