A spate of terrorist attacks in London, and reports that the attackers may have been radicalized online, has prompted leaders of several European countries to propose legislation that would hold technology companies accountable for the distribution of terrorist content on their platforms.

Google and Facebook have both responded with internally developed strategies to combat the use of their websites to recruit and inspire would-be terrorists. At first glance, these efforts are an attempt to address European concerns, in hopes of preempting legislation that would likely include punitive measures for companies that fail to adequately censor terrorist content.

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“It’s so easy to point to the need for internet companies to do more that that becomes a real rallying cry,” says Daphne Keller, the director of Intermediary Liability at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, and a former associate general counsel to Google. “In European lawmaking, they don’t have very good tech advice on what’s really possible. And the cost of a badly drafted law won’t fall on their constituents, so the temptation to engage in magical thinking is very great.” With a law like the one Germany has proposed, she and other say, the only way to comply with it would be to remove everything flagged, since there’s no time allowed for nuanced decisionmaking.

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“We’re delegating decisions about the kinds of things that, if it was a Supreme Court decision, would be incredibly sensitive, and we’d be hanging on every word,” says Ms. Keller. “Instead, we have private companies doing it in back rooms.”