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RIYADH — Twitter has closed about 600,000 accounts with suspected terrorist links, said speakers who addressed a forum on combating terrorism and extremism here recently. “About 60 percent terrorists were convicted of committing various crimes including morality crimes,” one speaker said.
Speakers at the forum said the Daesh (the so-called IS) has designed special propaganda content on the Internet to target women.
The speakers emphasized the need to confront efforts being made by “people whom we know” to recruit young men and women to terrorist groups. “Daesh targets women who consider themselves abandoned by society,” one speaker pointed out.
Daesh gives these women a sense of belonging by entrusting them with the task of recruiting young men and women to the terrorist organization.
Dr. Peter Newman, special envoy of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said many people in Europe became extremists after influenced by terrorist and extremist content on the Internet, the main communication means for terrorist organizations.
At the same time, Newman added, the recruitment of militants takes place on the ground by their friends and associates whom they knew throughout their lives.
“For example, most terrorists from Norway lived in the same street. They grew up together and had their education in the same school,” Newman told the forum.
He said the efforts to combat terrorism should not only focus on recruitment of militants through the Internet but also how terrorist groups recruit their followers.
“The Internet has provided Daesh a big platform for propaganda. They telecast high quality videos through the Internet,” he said, adding that the videos present terrorists as social activists.
© The Saudi Gazette 2017
