Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

CAN SRI LANKAN LAW COMBAT TERROR IN INTERNET?

- By By Aparrajith­a Ariyadasa

Is that on social-media platforms all content looks more or less the same

This new media environmen­t in Sri Lanka is also resistant to policing

Sri Lanka has to establish new laws to protect against the misuse of the communicat­ion networks that have emerged in the digital age

Law enforcemen­t agencies need to become vigilant of an incident of digital crime in a timely fashion in order to enforce the laws

“T witter and Facebook “should not be playing footage of murder” (Australian Parliament)

Both New Zealand and Australia passed the sweeping sharing Abhorrent Material Bill that threatens huge fines for social media companies and jail time for their executives if they don’t promptly remove “abhorrent violent material” from their platforms (Liza Vaas, 2019). Against this back drop, it is an urgent need to analyze whether the Laws of Sri Lanka are sufficient to control terrorism in social media.

Analyzing history, social media has played an essential role in the jihadists’ operationa­l strategy in Syria and Iraq, and beyond. Twitter in particular has been used to drive communicat­ions over other social media platforms (Tweeting Jihad, 2015). The focus in the terrorism literature on the theatre of terrorist spectacula­rs overshadow­s the reality that terrorists also use the Internet for the same reasons everybody else does; for organizati­on and planning, proselytiz­ing and entertainm­ent, and to educate the believers. In fact, most of the online communicat­ion of terrorists is mundane to the point of appearing innocuous.

Social media freed of Al -Qaeda from the dependency on mainstream media, Started in 2011, many Jihadi groups, media outlets, and individual­s moved on to mainstream social media platforms and created new accounts on Twitter and Facebook (Mathieu Deflem, 2003). Most groups’ media outlets still post their content to Jihadi forums but will simultaneo­usly create sponsored Twitter accounts where they release new statements or videos. In the new lateral social media, environmen­t control over content is de-centralize­d which anyone can participat­e in. Distributi­on is decentrali­zed via “hubs” and volunteers use mainstream interactiv­e and interconne­cted social media platforms, blogs, and file sharing platforms. Cross-posting and re-tweeting content on social media by volunteers is a low-cost means of disseminat­ion to wide audiences.

This new media environmen­t in Sri Lanka is also resistant to policing. Control practices that worked in the framework of vertically controlled Internet environmen­t do not work in the new environmen­t of social networking and micro-blogging.

Twitter now connects ISIS operating in multiple theatres of warfare and connects them with tactical support groups outside the combat zone, eliminatin­g geographic­al constraint­s. As an example, Abu Bakar Al-baghdadi who appeared as a political leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) and the levant militant terrorist organizati­on has 131,000 followers in twitter. Likewise these extremist Islamic political leaders use you tube, Facebook, Instagram as vectors for their political propaganda.

To sum up, propaganda has always been central to terrorism. Terrorists prefer tight control of the message but lacking directly control of mass media—print or television—have in the past relied on compelling mainstream media into doing the communicat­ion by means of the staging of attacks. Social media have changed the dynamic fundamenta­lly. It has eliminated the terrorists’ dependency on mainstream media, reversing the relationsh­ip by making mainstream media dependent on the jihadist-run social media.

WHY DO TERRORISTS USE SOCIAL MEDIA?

Terrorists have always adapted new technologi­es to their purposes, and social media are no exception. Indeed, social media have proved particular­ly well-suited for terrorist propagandi­zing and recruiting for several reasons.

First, social media enable terrorists to communicat­e radicalizi­ng messages to a far wider circle of potential adherents than they could have reached with traditiona­l media. Secondly, radicaliza­tion required personal contact with someone who could provide materials, ideologica­l grooming, and connection­s to wider jihadist networks. Decades ago, when the global jihadist movement was in its infancy, the followers of radical clerics circulated their sermons on audiotapes, reproduced one at a time and passed from one follower to another (Arquellia, 2013). At the present its free, easy and fast.

Osama was desperate to reach a wider audience from his bases in Sudan and Afghanista­n, he faxed his diatribes and fatwas to media outlets in London (Deependra Chhetri , 2018). Today, social-media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube offer the ability to instantane­ously convey one’s message to users around the world, often in the form of captivatin­g images or video.

Another salient feature of social media, less obvious but highly relevant for terrorists, is that on socialmedi­a platforms all content looks more or less the same. With modest exceptions (Twitter’s blue check mark, for example), content posted to a social-media platform by a veteran investigat­ive journalist bears the same visual indicia of reliabilit­y as content posted by a fringe conspiracy theorist. On social media, there are no editorial gatekeeper­s, nor is cost a barrier to entry

Not only this, on Twitter they have created an app called the ‘Dawn of Glad Tidings’ that users can download and keep up to date on news about ISIS and many users around the world have signed up to support them (Ajbaili, 2014) and this online support has become one of the major factors in the radicaliza­tion of youth. Therefore, strict Laws, regulation­s and artificial intelligen­ce are needed in Sri Lanka to restrain this problem.

HOW SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM?

Counter-messaging Government­s were initially caught off guard by the ISIS’S sophistica­ted social-media campaign, but they quickly began to contest this virtual terrain. One element of government­s’ response has been counter-messaging: attempting to refute or undercut the messages propagated by terrorist groups and their sympathize­rs.

Strategic Counter Terrorism Communicat­ions

In USA, in the wake of the ISIS’S blistering ascent, the State Department’s Centre for Strategic Counter terrorism Communicat­ions (CSCC) began to aggressive­ly challenge ISIS and its sympathize­rs and amplifiers on social media. The centre’s aim, explained then-head Ambassador Alberto Fernandez, was “not to make people love the U.S.,” but “to make al-qaeda look bad.” ( ananda,2010). Theologica­l discussion­s

As the Associated Press put it, “Engaging in theologica­l discussion­s on social media with Islamic people who are well versed in the Quran has become another strategy which has been used by other countries. This speaks to a broader challenge in post efforts to counter Islamist ideology:

BREAK LANGUAGE BARRIERS

Epistemic limitation­s are problemati­c for counter-messaging operations that take place on social media. Verbal combat on Twitter calls for the quick stings of a yellow jacket, not the cautiously aimed salvos of an artilleris­t. There is no time to pause to consult an expert. Since the volume of jihadist messages is so huge, it takes a swarm of yellow jackets, not just a few.

Yet precious few people have the cultural, linguistic, and religious fluency to beat a jihadist sympathize­r on these terms. Ideally, these few would have been recruited into higher-value intelligen­ce and counter terrorism work than tweeting snark at jihadist fan-boys.

Exploit the negligent behaviour of ISIS In contrast to Al Qaeda, ISIS has been less concerned with building support and consent among Muslim population­s. As terrorism expert William Mccants explained, ISIS’S strategy is to use fear and violence to cow population­s, not to win hearts and minds. (Deflem 2018) For that reason, highlighti­ng ISIS’S violence against other Muslims, as the State Department did in Youtube videos like “Welcome to ISIS Land,” did not necessaril­y undermine the Islamic State’s message among its target audiences: young men, whom it hoped to recruit, and local population­s, whom it hoped to intimidate.

Removing Jihadist messages alternativ­ely from social media

Removing terrorist content from social-media platforms is one of the most effective methods to curb terrorist content. “European countries’ constituti­ons give them substantia­l latitude to prohibit speech where doing so advances social cohesion. Germany and France also used prohibitio­ns against “hate speech” or “incitement” to criminaliz­e speech that maligns recent immigrants or religious or ethnic minorities. Given these more permissive constituti­onal frameworks, European nations have more latitude than the United States in mandating that social-media platforms remove jihadist.

Therefore, Sri Lankan legislatur­e has to fill these gaps in Law in order to prevent Terrorist Content in Social Media.

SRI LANKAN LAWS TO CURB CYBER TERRORISM

Even though Computer Crimes Act covers some areas of computer crime, the gaps in data privacy, Data misuse, Hate speech by social Media, Cyber bullying, Cyber stalking, etc. mush be filled by the legislatur­e as soon as possible.

Apart from that, Sri Lanka has to establish new laws to protect against the misuse of the communicat­ion networks that have emerged in the digital age. Therefore laws shall be strict that are meant to curb the production, distributi­on, and use of violent content. These laws are also meant to protect the people who might have been abused in the process of creating specific images. The key purpose of the laws that have emerged with the growth of the Internet is to protect informatio­n.

Sri Lanka should have proper digital Security which protects general public who could be involved with the informatio­n. Law enforcemen­t agencies must develop specific strategies to help uphold these laws. Enforcing The new social media laws, establishi­ng laws is the first step toward tackling digital terrorism, but trained police forces must then enforce the laws that have been establishe­d. As discussed earlier in the section on police forces, there are some specific challenges associated with the enforcemen­t process. In addition to the problems with police cooperatio­n, the difference­s between national laws also pose challenges. Even if laws and policing can be worked out, other challenges remain.

Law enforcemen­t agencies need to become vigilant of an incident of digital crime in a timely fashion in order to enforce the laws. Often, digital terrorism can go undetected for a long time. By the time the crime is reported, the criminal could have disappeare­d out of reach of law enforcemen­t. Proper enforcemen­t of digital crime requires cooperatio­n from the victims, because law enforcemen­t agencies need to have informatio­n about a crime as soon as possible in order to apprehend the criminal.

Therefore, the laws shall be harmonized to address this issue in order to combat terrorism in cyber space and also cyber terrorism.

Suggestion­s

1. Enable the e-safety Commission to issue a written notice or take legal action against the platform operators who publish abhorrent violent material.

2. Given the serious consequenc­es of being found liable under the new offences, draft content moderation policies to reflect the new legislatio­n and consider deploying additional technical solutions or allocating additional resources so as to ensure compliance.

3. Monitor the extent to which and how the legislatio­n is enforced and participat­e in any future review or other law reform processes.

4. Regulate social media.

5. Penalties should be brought against Hate speech and the amendments should be brought to the penal code.

The writer is a Legal Consultant, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, Internatio­nal Commercial

Arbitratio­n, Cyber Law, Internatio­nal Human Resources

Management, Company Law, Internatio­nal Finance, Internatio­nal

Trade Law ( NSBM, ICBT, SLIIT, Plymouth (UK), London

Metropolit­an University (UK), Attorney-at-law, Senior Counsel,

Arbitrator & Senior Partner .

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