EAM S Jaishankar says internet, social media are key items in terror toolkit

EAM S Jaishankar cautioned on Saturday that new and rising applied sciences, whereas providing a promising future, have additionally thrown up new challenges for governments and regulatory our bodies resulting from their potential vulnerability for misuse by non-state actors for terror actions.

“The technological innovations and breakthroughs of the past two decades have been transformative in the way the world functions in every aspect. These new and emerging technologies – from virtual private networks, and encrypted messaging services to blockchain and virtual currencies – offer a very promising future for a wide array of economic and social benefits for humankind. However, there is a flip side, especially where terrorism is concerned,” Jaishankar mentioned in his deal with on day two of the particular assembly of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee right here.

“In recent years, terrorist groups, their ideological fellow-travellers, particularly in open and liberal societies and ‘lone wolf’ attackers have significantly enhanced their capabilities by gaining access to these technologies,” he mentioned. “They use technology and money, and most importantly, the ethos of open societies, to attack freedom, tolerance and progress.”

Internet and social media platforms have became potent devices in the toolkit of terrorist and militant teams for spreading propaganda, radicalisation and conspiracy theories geared toward destabilising societies, the minister mentioned.

Terrorism stays one of many gravest threats to humanity, Jaishankar mentioned. “The UNSC, in the past two decades, has evolved an important architecture, built primarily around the counter terrorism sanctions regime, to combat this menace. This has been very effective in putting those countries on notice that had turned terrorism into a state-funded enterprise,” he mentioned, with out mentioning Pakistan.

Despite this, the specter of terrorism is barely rising and increasing, notably in Asia and Africa, as successive experiences of the 1267 Sanctions Committee Monitoring Reports have highlighted, the minister mentioned.