Analyzing IT's Role in Preventing Radicalisation and Terrorism

This opinion editorial explores the critical role of Information Technology (IT) in controlling radicalisation, a process often associated with violence and terrorism. It highlights how social media platforms are primary channels for spreading radical ideologies due to a lack of content control and filtration. The essay references research by various authors, emphasizing the need for IT solutions such as blocking, filtering, and reviewing content to prevent the spread of harmful ideas. These measures can reduce radical violence and terrorist activities by controlling hateful messages. The editorial underscores the fine line between radicalisation and extremism and suggests that IT control measures can help societies accept social, political, and religious differences. Furthermore, it advocates for IT solutions to ensure the greater good of society and prevent violence and terrorism by controlling and filtering content sharing, thereby mitigating the risks associated with religious and political matters. The editorial references the work of Turk (2017), Saeed and Johnson (2016), Brabazon (2016), Smith (2016), Flannery (2015), and Ezeah and Emmanuel (2016).

Running head: OPINION EDITORIAL
OPINION EDITORIAL ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Radicalisation, as mentioned by Turk (2017), is a term which could be used for
different aspects and in different contexts however, the one aspect which is primarily
associated with this aspect is violence and terrorism or any form of extremities. There are
numerous means using which radicalisation of the communities or population occurs and in
which the role of IT especially the social and mass media becomes most crucial.as mentioned
in the paper by Saeed and Johnson (2016), proper application of IT solutions are helpful in
controlling the increase and spread of radicalisation within society. In this opinion editorial,
the role of IT in controlling and keeping the people of society away from the harmful effects
of radicalisation, that eventually leads to violence and terrorism.
As mentioned in a research conducted by Brabazon (2016), radicalisation is the
acceptance of a thinking and belief that does not comply with the greater good of the society,
and hence supports violence and fear. This violence and fear is a developed view point
against a specific section of the society and as per Turk (2017), majority of the violence and
radicalisation has occurred due to the political and religious conflicts around the world
among two vulnerable groups. Hence, from the above- mentioned definition or description, it
could be said that the radicalisation process is primary an influence due to which a specific
section of society develops anger and hatred towards another section and hence, conflict
related condition occurs. However, the primary source of the radicalisation due to which such
thoughts and beliefs are spread among the populations should be primarily analysed. In a
recent literature by Smith (2016), it was mentioned that the primary resource of spreading
such hatred and influence within the communities, used by radical groups are social media
such as Facebook, what’s app, and others. It should be mentioned that one of the primary
reason of using these aspects for the communication and influencing communities are the
lack of controlling measures, filtration of fake and radical posts and unlimited sharing and
forwarding aspects. As mentioned by Saeed and Johnson (2016), application of IT solutions

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for blocking, filtering, limited forwards and proper reviewing of the materials that are spread
through the social media should be conducted so that the radical thoughts and ideas could be
prevented and hence, this should be one of the critical aspects that should be conducted while
controlling the radicalisation of communities against a specific community.
Further, application of IT measures for the control of radical measures could also
prevent the occurrence of terrorist attacks and it has been observed through the research
conducted by Saeed and Johnson (2016) that controlling and preventing hateful messages,
and posts about a specific community has considerably reduced the number of radical
violence activities and hence, it should be mentioned that IT solutions are capable in
maintaining the control over the radical or extremist thinks and hence, as per Flannery
(2015), it should be practices in every country so that occurrence of violence and terror
incidences could be prevented.
Further, it should be noted that radicalisation and extremism has very fine line in
between them and application of social media or other IT related control measures would be
helpful in making the society acceptable to social, political and regions differences (Smith
2016). Besides this, it should be mentioned that society is full of opinions such as
radicalisation and extremity is acceptable and such conditions does not lead to violence and
hence there should be freedom of speech and opinion making, however while developing
such opinions the greater good of the society and the complete population should be the
target of the policy makers (Smith 2016). Hence application of IT control measures for
controlled and filtered content sharing could be enhanced and through this the control of
radical influences could be maintained (Brabazon 2016). Further, in this aspect, it should be
mentioned that radicalisation could lead to terrorism due to its alignment with religious and
political matters, hence application of IT solutions would be an effective step so that the

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society could be freed from risk of extreme violence and terrorism (Ezeah and Emmanuel
2016).
References
Brabazon, T., 2016. Thinking popular culture: war, terrorism and writing. Routledge.
Ezeah, G.H. and Emmanuel, N.O., 2016. Foreign media framing of Boko Haram insurgency:
A critical analysis of BBC and Aljazeera online coverage. International Journal of Advanced
Scientific Research and Management, 1(10), pp.30-44.
Flannery, F.L., 2015. Understanding apocalyptic terrorism: countering the radical mindset.
Routledge.
Saeed, T. and Johnson, D., 2016. Intelligence, global terrorism and higher education:
neutralising threats or alienating allies?. British Journal of Educational Studies, 64(1), pp.37-
51.
Smith, M.S., 2016. Terrorism Thinking:“9/11 Changed Everything”. In Securing Africa (pp.
1-28). Routledge.
Turk, A.T., 2017. Notes on criminology and terrorism. In Advances in criminological
theory (pp. 17-30). Routledge.