Saturday, 3 September 2016

Exposure to radical idealogy through social media; are our young people safe?



Recent Research shows that, young people’s exposure to social media and modern extremist’s propaganda and indoctrination done through many other avenues including social media are key causes of violence by students and demonstrators in the streets all over the world. According to CNN, the days of would-be terrorists needing to travel too far-off camps to make contacts and learn how to build bombs is rapidly receding. Social media forums like Twitter and Facebook provide a ready-made Rolodex of sources; “…dig further online, mine those contacts further, gain admission to private chat forums and eventually you will find instructions for bomb making”. Our young people are fully surrounded by digital media and these expose them to such social evils. Internet penetration continues to grow in Uganda, connecting more citizens to new digital media tools and platforms, particularly on internet-enabled mobile devices, in urban and rural areas alike; unfortunately, unlike in the mainstream media where content are highly controlled, internet freedom has not been subjected to the same level of surveillance. Therefore the unskilled young people are highly vulnerable to exposure to extremists’ persuasive ideology.

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