Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Experts note that online propaganda of radical ideology is becoming one of the most dangerous manifestations of extremist and terrorist activity. The significant growth in the role of the Internet thanks to the restrictive measures introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic exacerbates this problem.

At the same time, according to experts, social platforms are becoming the main channel of radicalization and recruitment. Thus, according to estimates by Hootsuite Inc, as of October 2020, only the Facebook platform is actively used by about 3 billion people.

According to the security agencies of the CIS countries, during the quarantine period, 22 cells of international terrorist organizations, which were actively recruiting in the online space, were eliminated by joint efforts.

Digital security experts note that today limiting access to materials of a radical nature is one of the pressing problems. This is due to the fact that it is technically difficult to ban pages on social networks, and an official appeal to the platform owners with a demand to remove extremist materials takes a long time.

Moreover, experts emphasize that the owners of media platforms, referring to their internal rules, may not delete materials. For example, despite the requirement of Roskomnadzor of the Russian Federation, 10482 pages with prohibited information have not been removed from YouTube, 1462 from Twitter, 1435 on Instagram, and 362 on Facebook. In 2020, more than 3 thousand illegal content was identified on Google.

Nevertheless, states are taking certain measures to regulate the activities of social networks and media platforms. In Turkey, for failure to comply with government requirements, IT companies are first fined and later artificially slowed down the speed of access to services. In Germany, large platforms are also required to promptly remove illegal content. Failure to comply with the order will result in a fine of up to 50 million euros.

In general, online propaganda of radical ideology is becoming one of the main threats to national security. Confronting this threat is also complicated by technical and legal factors. Moreover, owners of large platforms are not always willing to meet government decisions for fear of losing the attractiveness of their resources in the eyes of users.