TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Social Conflict Studies in the University of Indonesia, Solahudin, said social media quickens the process of radicalization.
“I could take a conclusion that one of the elements that speed up radical acts is related to social media,” he said in a discussion meeting at Communication and Informatics Ministry, Jakarta, Wednesday, May 16.
Solahudin assessed ISIS groups in Indonesia created many channels in messaging platform Telegram. In 2017, there were more than 60 Telegram channels with Indonesian language and more than 30 private channels of them made by ISIS groups.
Read: Four Social Media Platforms Take Down Radical Accounts
Every day, Solahudin added, they spread 80-150 messages containing violence in one channel. Thus, if they had more than 60 channels, thousands of radicalism messages were broadcasted within 24 hours. “By such intensive messages, the public is potentially exposed to the concept of radical acts that make the process more intense,” he underlined.
Solahudin revealed, based on his research in 2017, 85 percent of 75 terrorist convicts needed less than a year to conduct terrorist acts since the beginning.
During 2002 until 2012 –when social media has yet become public limelight– the terrorists needed five to ten years to establish an attack.
Meanwhile, the ministry expert of Literacy Digital and Internet Management Division Donny BU said the radicalism has indeed easy to be spread on social media. “Learning how to assemble a bomb via YouTube is the issue we have heard over the years,” he said, adding that such contents could be quickly blocked while others are required a long time.
MUHAMMAD HENDARTYO
