Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam says that more young people are getting exposed to radical views through social media. (Photo: straitstimes.com) Singapore (VNA) – Singaporean Minister of Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam on September 16 said that online radicalisation is a key factor in pushing the terror threat in the country today.
Speaking at an event held by Ministry of Home Affairs, the minister stressed that more young people are getting exposed to radical views through social media and information can now be shared and multiplied at a very fast and unprecedented scale.
He acknowledged that if someone goes down the radicalisation path, he can very quickly gain access to hundreds, thousands of articles, posts and videos. Once someone is caught in something, the social media algorithms are such that they keep feeding him more and more of the same.
The minister added that if anyone is interested in a certain type of negative approach, he will quickly link up with many others who think along the same lines around the world, form connections and their negative beliefs become self-reinforcing.
He said there are people who deliberately and maliciously mislead others with wrong information, adding that they play to xenophobia and distrust or lead others towards terrorism and radicalisation.
He said terrorists and extremists are targeting young people on social media, noting that out of the 49 self-radicalised individuals who were dealt with under the Internal Security Act (ISA) since 2015, 11 of them were below the age of 20.
Of the 11 young people, five of them made plans to carry out attacks in Singapore, he added.
In February, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said a 15-year-old self-radicalised student who thought about carrying out knife attacks and beheading non-Muslims in popular tourist areas here was detained under the ISA.
Speaking to volunteers, including members of the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) and Inter-Agency Aftercare Group (ACG) he said the government has laws and frameworks to take down and deal with these kinds of content, and that such cases are dealt with quickly.
The RRG brings together Islamic scholars and teachers who voluntarily assist in the religious counselling of radicalised individuals, while the ACG provides assistance to detainees and their families.
Since 2002, out of the 95 Singaporeans who had been detained under the ISA for terrorism-related conduct, 82 of them made good progress in their rehabilitation and have been released and reintegrated into society, said the minister./.
