This paper will discuss the role of the internet in terrorist activities, with a focus on social media.
Internet use has become ubiquitous in the current digital age. People use social media for a range of activities, some of which are negative. Studies show that in recent years, terrorist organizations have leveraged social media for their activities (Jain & Vaidya, 2021). Some terrorists spread their ideology and recruit new supporters via social media. For instance, YouTube has notoriously been used to introduce people to radical content. Social media is also used to train new members and incite them to action. Besides indoctrinating people, terrorists utilize social media to research, strategize, and coordinate their actions (Goodman, 2018). This includes creating public terror, which is a critical element of a terror attack. In the electronic age, terrorists use social media for recruitment, training, public terror, and action.
There are numerous reasons why social media serves as a powerful tool for terrorist organizations. First, platforms such as YouTube and Facebook have a wide reach, with the latter having more than two billion active users (Lowe, 2022). This makes it easy for extremists to find people to recruit. Second, social media platforms do not have strict regulations that prevent people from uploading radical content. Some platforms, such as Twitter, do not have strong regulations against hate speech because they seek to protect the freedom of speech (Chetty & Alathur, 2018). This allows terrorists to incite violence via hate speech on the internet. Insufficient content moderation makes it difficult to suppress terrorist activity on social media. Lastly, social media is popular because terrorists can act anonymously. They can spread their ideology without compromising their identity. In summary, counterterrorism necessitates an understanding of the complex relationship between social media and terrorism.
References
Chetty, N., & Alathur, S. (2018). Hate speech review in the context of online social networks. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 40, 108-118.
Goodman, A. E. J. (2018). When you give a terrorist a twitter: Holding social media companies liable for their support of terrorism. Pepp. L. Rev., 46, 147.
Jain, P. N., & Vaidya, A. S. (2021). Analysis of social media based on terrorism—a review. Vietnam Journal of Computer Science, 8(01), 1-21.
Lowe, D. (2022). Far-right extremism: Is it legitimate freedom of expression, hate crime, or terrorism?. Terrorism and Political Violence, 34(7), 1433-1453.