No Platform For Violence

Mains Paper 5: Internal Security
Prelims level: Social Media
Mains level: Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social
networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention\

Context

•  26/11 was the first time technology was used for orchestrating large-scale terrorist attacks in India.
•  As a platform, Facebook is deeply aware that terrorists use a variety of tools to plan, co-ordinate attacks and propagate, radicalise and recruit.
•  There is no place for terrorism or terrorist content on Facebook.
•  Our community standards strictly prohibit and ban the presence of individuals or organisations engaged in terrorist activity.
•  We do not allow praise or valourisation of terrorism on our platform.

Initiatives taken so far

•  So far we have taken down more than 14 million pieces of terrorist content.
•  We use a variety of signals, image matching, other AI and machine learning tools to identify al Qaeda and its affiliates and proactively weed them out from our platform.
•  This year we took down 99 per cent of ISIS and al Qaeda content before it was reported by anyone in our community.
•  We have a team of counter-terrorism experts these experts are former prosecutors, law enforcement officials, investigators, academics, counter-terrorism researchers.
•  We also have human reviewers with a wide range of linguistic capabilities covering most languages which are spoken in terror hotspots.

Past attacks

•  Over the years we have observed that most terror networks are global networks. In order to identify dangerous or terrorist organisations we look at the US-designated foreign terrorist organisations list.
•  We also look at proscribed lists issued by the Government of India. Examples of such organisations that are banned on Facebook include the Hizbul Mujhahideen, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent or AQIS.
•  26/11 taught us several strategic security lessons on the need to organise ourselves better across a range of areas state and security action, information operations in the real and virtual world, crisis response and emergency co-ordination.
•  It also taught us about civic courage and resilience. Last year, I learnt about Preeti Bisht. Preeti is Ashok Chakra awardee Havildar Gajendra Singh Bisht’s daughter.
•  Havildar Bisht fell while flushing out terrorists from Nariman House as the National Security Guards fought back the attack. Preeti is now readying herself to join the Indian army.

Way forward

•  This is the 10th anniversary of the 26/11 attakcs. There have been a number of heinous global terrorism incidents and a rise in the number of failed states.
•  Global terrorism incidents claimed 18,700 lives in over 8,500 terrorist attacks across the world in 2017.
•  In India alone, there have been 77 major terror incidents this year, according to the latest figures by the Institute for Conflict Management.
•  At the same time, we have seen growing community action to build safe communities and efforts to de-radicalise groups. We see many such campaigns on our platform.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Consider the following about Nuclear Triad.
1 . A triad consists of nuclear weapons delivery by aircraft, ballistic missiles and submarine launched missiles.
2. India is the only country other than USA to have a nuclear triad.
3. Completing a nuclear triad is a pre-requisite for membership of Missile Technology Control Regime
(MTCR) for non-signatories of NPT.

Select the correct answer using the codes below.
a) 1 and 2 only
b) 1 only
c) 2 and 3 only
d) 1 and 3 only

Answer: B

Mains Questions:
Q.1) To what extent social media is responsible for various terrorism attacks across the world. Critically analyse.