The use of technology by terrorists in West Africa must be avoided.

In the year In 2013, when al-Shabaab attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, the group live-blogged the horrific event on Twitter and mocked the authorities who were struggling to end the siege. It represents a terrifying chapter in the tools of social media and shows the courage and adaptability of African armed groups.

A decade later, terrorist groups in West Africa are adapting their tactics to hacking social media platforms and messaging apps. Parts of the region have been home to fast-growing and deadly extremists, according to the Global Terrorism Index. And the instances where social media platforms and messaging apps have become an integral part of extremists’ modus operandi are steadily increasing.

As the physical and online worlds merge, many groups, particularly Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), are incorporating the Internet into their operations, said researchers such as Boulama Bukarti of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Moreover, given their decentralized nature, these groups are becoming increasingly difficult to hack and are achieving online access that is impossible in the physical world.

A recent workshop organized by Tech Counter-Terrorism (TAT) in Ghana highlighted the nature of the widespread online terrorist content in West Africa and highlighted strategies to address the threats. TAT is a non-governmental organization established by the Executive Directorate of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee to create links between technology platforms, academia and civil society.

Violent extremists in West Africa, particularly in the Sahel and Lake Chad basins, use the Internet to spread propaganda, recruit, incite extremism and violence, and finance and plan their operations.

Deryn Saltman, former head of Facebook’s counterterrorism and dangerous organizations policy department and now program director of TAT partner Global Internet Forum on Terrorism (GIFCT), is a leading voice in this field. She said greater efforts are needed to encourage tech companies to ‘prevent and respond’ to terrorism online by increasing transparency and reporting on human rights.

Extremists are now using smaller platforms to circumvent controls meant to remove terrorist content, says Anne Cranien, a TAT expert who monitors the situation in West Africa. For example, AQIM – arguably the region’s most violent user of online communications – uses “beacon” sites to funnel Internet traffic to smaller sites. It also uses ‘aggregators’ designed to provide viewers with links to similar terrorist content, to circumvent content moderation.

While large platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have the resources to provide some degree of content moderation, many smaller operators do not. These are what terrorist groups choose.

Groups such as the Boko Haram separatist faction, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) rely on messaging services such as WhatsApp and Telegram to communicate internally and externally because they prefer the encrypted nature of these applications. Mr Bucarti said: ‘Telegram is becoming a new front for African terrorist groups.’ ‘At last count, ISWAP had over 50 Facebook and Telegram accounts.’ Also, ‘There is no investigation; No one in Africa seems to care.’

Whether it’s a lack of empathy, insufficient research, or competing policy priorities, there is no doubt that violent extremist groups in West Africa deploy technology differently.

Boko Haram was less aggressive in its use of the Internet before it split, Mr. Bukarti said. Nevertheless, it still enjoys significant user traffic, especially YouTube pages that praise the group’s founder, Muhammad Yusuf. It suggests that tech companies are ‘making money from terrorist content’ as more views increase the platform’s revenue, which is paid for ads alongside accessible content. While this may be unintended, increasing site traffic is part of the business case for Internet platforms.

What incentive is there for tech companies to respond? Do business obligations prevail, or does reputation management help encourage responsible use of cyberspace? Big players like Meta (formerly Facebook) have set up ‘standard procedures’ and ‘dedicated channels’ to deal with requests to remove terrorist content, their policy team said. But smaller platforms don’t necessarily have the resources to respond in the same way.

In addition, Global North as While the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand attacks have seen more success in calling out tech companies, consumer pressure across Africa has been much lower. This is due to the ‘digital divide’, competing policy priorities and a relative lack of awareness across the continent.

TAT has recently launched a knowledge sharing platform to send secure alerts when terrorist content is detected. It has also developed small Internet platforms and outreach and advisory programs to governments to combat the growing trend of online terrorism.

In the absence of a comprehensive tool to counter cyber-terrorist activities, groups such as the West African Economic Community are critical to raising awareness and formulating regional countermeasures, said Ghana’s Minister of National Security, Albert Khan Dapah. Akinola Olojo, project manager at the Institute for Security Studies, said international coalitions and other similar initiatives have a role to play in Boko Haram-affected countries in the Lake Chad Basin.

African governments should engage with the technology sector to expand knowledge of the context in which terrorist organizations thrive in the technology sector. Instead of a blanket shutdown of the Internet, they should develop rapid responses that respect human rights principles that deny citizens their right to freedom of expression.

Moreover, terrorist groups in Africa need to make Internet use a matter for the wider world.

Karen Allen, Consultant, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Pretoria

(This article was first published by ISS Today, our premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to reprint).