NEW DELHI: Internet and social media platforms have turned into potent instruments in the “toolkit” of terror groups, which are misusing new technologies such as encrypted messaging and cryptocurrencies to further their cause, India warned on Saturday. Addressing a special meeting of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said while recent tech innovations have positively transformed the way the world functions, there is a flip side to it.
“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 said, adding these forces use technology and money, and most importantly the ethos of open societies, to attack freedom, tolerance and progress.
Reaffirming India’s commitment to combat terror, he announced a voluntary contribution of $500,000 to UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism this year to aid capacity-building support to member states in combating terrorism. Representatives from all 15 member nations of the UN Security Council attended the second day’s meeting held in Delhi on Saturday.
The first day’s events were held in Mumbai on Friday. The meeting adopted the “Delhi Declaration” listing the Council’s priorities in combating the challenge of terrorism and terror financing. It called on member countries to ensure “zero tolerance” towards terrorist activities. “Terrorism should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group. It was noted with concern increased use of internet, social media platforms for terrorist purposes,” the declaration read.
New IT Rules to protect online users, says Ashwini Vaishnaw
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday said the intent of the new IT rules notified on Friday is to protect online users. Under the new rules, the Centre proposed to set up appellate panels to settle grievances that users may have against decisions of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook on hosting contentious content. MoS, IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said social media firms must act “as fast as possible” after content is flagged as the “velocity” of misinformation tends to be much higher.