Terrorists abusing emerging technologies to recruit and radicalise, says UN chief

New Delhi, October 29

The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, on Saturday called for a concerted global effort to deal with the challenge of the use of new technologies by various terror groups to radicalise people and foment discord in societies.

“New and emerging technologies have unmatched potential to improve the human conditions everywhere, regrettably they have also been misused by many. Terrorists and others posing hateful ideologies are abusing new and emerging technologies to spread disinformation, foment discord, recruit and radicalise, mobilise resources and execute attacks,” the UN Secretary-General said in a message at the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee’s special meeting, hosted for the first time in Delhi.

The meet on the theme, “Countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes”, is being attended by representatives from all 15 member nations of the UNSC.

Besides expressing concern over the abuse of new technologies by terror groups to spread disinformation, foment discord and radicalise the youth, UN Secretary-General Guterres said the Covid-19 pandemic had highlighted many vulnerabilities to such misuse. “We must adopt concrete measures to reduce these vulnerabilities while committing to protect all human rights in the digital sphere. This can only be achieved through effective multilateralism and international cooperation anchoring our responses in the values and obligations of the UN charter and the universal declaration of human rights,” he observed. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar sounded a note of caution about the misuse of new technologies such as encrypted messaging and crypto-currency by “non-state actors”.

He said social media platforms had turned a “toolkit” of terror networks and their “ideological fellow travellers” and “lone wolf” attackers had significantly enhanced capabilities by gaining access to new technologies.