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By Fatima Waheed
The misuse of social media is well known, the internet and particularly social media stages revolutionized the way individuals communicate, share information, and disseminate facts. While this worldwide network has regularly been a drive for good, technological advancements have moreover empowered radical groups to further their inhumane agendas. They have misused social media sites to propagandize, recruit, radicalize, incite to commit acts of extremism, gather data for terrorist activities, broadcast assaults and indeed fundraise on an unexpected level. The radicalization of people through the internet is an emerging slant. Online radicalization and extremism are among the current national and worldwide security threats.
Violent extremists of all affiliations have misused plenty of online administrations to spread their thoughts, interface and radicalize potential supporters. In numerous cases, online radicalization does not occur after seeing one video or perusing one online post rather it happens steadily. Online interactions with like-minded people can substitute for an individual’s physical community. Buyers of online radical substance can also create or increment sentiments of predominance, ethical shock and willingness to commit acts of savagery in the encouragement of a specific cause.
The internet has been utilized by terrorist and extremist associations around the world because of its ease and comfort. Employing a combination of conventional websites, standard social media stages, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, radicals broadcast their views, incite negative assumptions toward foes, incite individuals to savagery, commend martyrs, make virtual communities with like-minded people, give devout or lawful defences for extremist activities, and communicate separately with new initiates to groom them for violent exercises.
Cyber-attacks may have characteristics of terrorist attacks, including the basic desire to incite fear through the propaganda of politics or social media. An example of a cyber attack occurred in Israel in January 2012. The target of the attack was several symbolic Israeli websites such as the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and National Airlines, as well as the unauthorized disclosure of the credit cards and bank accounts of thousands of Israeli citizens.
The decisive advantage of the digital technologies can provide the extremists with a very sophisticated means of deception using browsers that can access deeper, hidden layers of the web. The best-known example of an anonymized software browser required to access this hidden layer of cyberspace is called Tor, “The Onion Router.” There is a heated debate in the intelligence community about how Tor helps organized crime and online radicalization and calls for its closure. The NSA (National Security Agency) in the United States is in a constant battle with Tor to crack its encryption. Civil rights groups, however, are vehemently against taking Tor offline. They also point out that Tor is not the only anonymization software that criminals and extremists can use. So, taking it offline would not stop cybercriminals. Extremists have alternative software to choose to hide their illegal activities such as OTR, Cspace, ZRTP, REDPone, Tails, TrueCrypt and other privacy tools. This is evident in the Information Technology (IT) literature with the notion of “dark social networks”.
“Dark social media is a term used by search engine optimization and marketers to describe conversions on websites that are difficult to track.”
One of the main uses of the internet by extremists is to spread propaganda, usually in the form of multimedia information, these can be virtual messages, presentations, magazines, contracts, audio and video files, and video games developed by extremist organizations or supporters. Extremist speeches, encouraging violent behaviour is also a common trend across a growing range of internet-based platforms to host extremist content. For example, (CDs) and (DVDs) are becoming more and more popular on the internet. Such content can be distributed through various tools such as dedicated websites, targeted virtual chats and forums, online magazines, social media platforms, popular video and file-sharing sites such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as YouTube and Rapid share. Using indexing services such as internet search engines can also make it easier to identify and search for terrorist content.
India’s extremism has been on the rise, especially in the regime of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which promotes Hinduism by supporting extremist individuals and organizations such as Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). Their support includes political sponsorship violence against Christians and Muslims. They believe that India belongs only to Hindus and should be liberated from non-Hindus. Indian identity and Hindu nationalism are also important motivations for American Indian immigrants to carry out charity.
India has a longstanding habit of peddling falsehoods against Pakistan and accusing Pakistan being epicentre of global terrorism. India continues to cover its online radicalization activities supported by fake media outlets and NGOs to influence the international community critical of Pakistan. These RSS led fake NGO’s, created and managed by Srivastava group (a brainchild of RSS) include World Sindh Congress, Balochistan House, Baloch Student Organization (BSO), Gilgit-Baltistan Studies and Friends of Gilgit-Baltistan etc. These radicalization driven NGO’s are frequently able to communicate with radicals each day, counting the dark web.
However, extremism is not limited to any specific religion; extremists misuse faith-based emotions to perpetuate their society grounds. Other than Hindus, Christians also use several similar methods to practice it. For example, the British Christian Council on one hand, believes that extremism belongs only to Muslims. On the other hand, British far-right activists and neo-Nazi groups advocate violence against Jews and Muslims. Nevertheless, violent extremists and organizations are so fluent at misusing the internet that they are rapidly instigating their goals and values on a large scale without directly revealing their faces.
The writer is currently pursuing her BS in Peace and Conflict Studies from National Defence University, Islamabad.
