Hardly a day goes by that social media platforms are not in the crosshairs of terrorist groups that exploit them to spread and promote their extremist ideas. This is one of the biggest challenges that contemporary societies need to face in order to maintain their security.
Terrorists and extremists exploit the platforms to spread the ideology of extremist groups, and to communicate with members and sympathizers; attracting new elements, and even planning terrorist attacks, collecting money, and for missions; These include training in forming organizational cells, recruiting more cadres and training them in the use of weapons, coordinating criminal operations and their timing, training in making improvised bombs and others, and spreading destructive ideas and beliefs.
Accordingly, the responsibility of social media platforms to besiege extremist content and eliminate the dissemination of hate speech and racist content must increase, as studies have revealed that most of the activities carried out by terrorists and extremists are carried out through the use of smaller and more modern messaging applications, which lack high censorship and facilitate communication without Censorship or restrictions, and it is the most popular and used by terrorist organizations. 550 extremist channels
Studies have shown that there are more than 500 extremist channels distributed on more than 20 different communication platforms and messaging applications, which necessitates that the platforms work to remove illegal content, and develop software to detect criminal operations that take place through them, by checking the content before it is published.
The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology “Etidal”, in cooperation with the “Telegram” platform, was able to remove more than 6 million extremist content, and close 1,840 channels that were used to broadcast and promote extremist ideas, belonging to three organizations. ISIS terrorists, Al-Qaeda and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, during the period from January to March 2023 AD.
The center stated that the work team succeeded in monitoring the extremist digital activity of the three organizations in Arabic on the “Telegram” platform, which included 2.7 million extremist content in 477 channels belonging to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and 1.8 million extremist content in 1040 channels belonging to ISIS. Al Qaeda terrorist organization had 1.4 million extremist content on 323 channels.
21 million content removed
On January 9, 2023, the Etidal team monitored an intense activity in broadcasting extremist content via Telegram to the three organizations, with 451.9 thousand extremist content, and on March 27, the highest activity in creating extremist channels for those organizations, with 101 channels in one day.
It is noteworthy that the joint cooperation between the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology “Etidal” and the “Telegram” platform continues for the second year in a row, bringing the number of what has been removed from February 2022 to date to more than 21 million extremist content and closing 8,664 extremist channels.
The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology emphasized that extremist organizations in communication platforms do not lie in their distinction or creativity in form or content, but rather in their ability to feed the network with different materials, and maintain the sustainability of this process, as a result of the weakness of traditional institutions to combat extremism, which helped organizations spread extremist propaganda. .
How do they catch victims?
Etidal explained that the method of recruitment through the platforms is to make the deceived lose confidence in themselves, raise their permanent feelings of guilt and self-reproach, and turn ordinary human mistakes into a kind of unforgivable sin, and after the victim is convinced, it is easy to obey in word and deed.
The severe pressures that terrorist organizations have been subjected to during the past few years, and the successive defeats on the ground, have prompted them to adopt new strategies for practicing terrorist activity, taking technology as a main starting point at the intellectual and kinetic levels, in order to achieve destructive goals and harm the security and stability of societies.
Cheap.. and effective!
Security researcher and expert in cybersecurity and combating cybercrime, Muhammad Al-Suraei, confirmed that recruiting young people through social media is one of the most frequent means that terrorist organizations resort to in recruiting young people. Terrorism using social media has become one of the most worrisome issues in various countries of the world. Terrorist organizations use communication platforms professionally to recruit, train, and communicate with their followers, supporters, donors, and sympathizers.
And Al-Suraei said that social media platforms are a safe means for these groups because they are a cheap and effective way, through which ideological ideas, propaganda and various activities are spread, and through which it is possible to plan an attack, carry out sabotage terrorist acts, hack security and information systems, and cultivate viruses. Al-Suraei said: Through these platforms, elements can be attracted and prepared to accept ideas of violence and terrorism and to adopt the literature of terrorist groups, adding that the ideological threat of violent extremism has become a global problem with cross-border repercussions. Through social media, extremist groups carry out continuous communication campaigns to urge their members and push them to extremism and to practice violence in the name of extremist ideologies, in light of many user privacy options on these platforms. Including the possibility of creating closed groups, having a private conversation, or a public page, where many different people can exchange views, opinions and discussions, and thus social media has also become one of the best and most attractive ways for terrorist groups and extremist organizations to spread ideas and form new followers. , and communicate with others permanently and securely.
Sympathizers.. supporters and implementers
The security researcher and expert in cybersecurity and combating cybercrime, Muhammad Al-Suraei, explained that those who follow the activity of the groups show that there are three categories; They are the sympathizers, supporters, and implementers, and they are the most targeted and damaged segment. He stressed that some pages on the communication platforms have become a virtual training camp for terrorists, as security reports indicate that 90% of terrorist attacks used homemade explosives, whose recipes are abundant on the Internet, and can be applied and professionalized by terrorist elements.
Ibrahim Al-Alawi (Jeddah) @i_waleeed22