Social Media Influence On Terrorism

Background

Terrorism is an approach employed by certain groups of people to achieve a particular objective. The method is usually applied by weaker powers in the fight against a stronger power such as a nation or a particular state. The use of violence is rampant, and the main aim is to stir up fear among the members and after that to prompt a violent reaction from the target population. These attacks from terrorist can form a cycle that becomes very difficult to break at times. In the recent past, the use of internet and other media platforms has been familiar with a primary aim of spreading fear and affect the opinion of the public on terrorism. It has also been used as a means to acquire new members into the program. Some nations have been

This is despite the efforts that have taken to educate the society on social media and other platforms on the dangers of terrorism. Studies have shown that likened to the colonial period, terrorism activities have peaked the most in the 9/11 era. The intensified terrorist activities with the recent attacks on Western Europe and the United Kingdom are some of the indicators that the actions have crossed overboard as such countries were never a targeted to the terrorist in past years. In the United States, the activities of terrorist have decreased as compared to the 1970s . Statistics have shown that the year 2014 experienced a significant outbreak of terrorist activities with most of the attacks taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria hat lead to a total of seventy-eight percent of the deaths and fifty-seven percent of all the attacks that occurred in the world. More current studies have indicated that in the recent years from year 2000 only three percent of terrorism triggered death have happened in western countries among them being Australia and Canada, the United States and other nations in the European country. In the United States alone the attacks have contributed to a close to 2.2% of the overall worldwide terrorism toll. The terrorist groups have added only 30% of the total terrorist activities while the recent have been committed with lone individuals

Currently, it is clear that terrorism is a worldwide concern and it has intensified with attacks happening on every other continent in the world. From the Middle East to Europe and also in Africa terrorism has been a topic of discussion with the death tolls causing a lot of attention every other day. Since the 9/11 attack on the United States, there has been an increased effort to fight the menace, but the activities seem not be enough. Every other stakeholder is working hard to ensure that there is a cut down on terrorism financing and also prevent this error group from accessing any biological weapons.

Evidence has indicated that global terrorism has been on a high rise since the Arab spring in 2011. Before this, the activities of the United States military in Iraq since 2007 had suppressed most of their actions. The year 2014 so far was the climax of the terrorist activities as a massive death toll resulting from terrorist activities was recorded. The main parties that contributed to this death toll were the Islamic state that carried out an enormous explosion, al-Shabaab among others. In 2015 there was also an increase in the activities, but this was with a reduction of ten percent from the previous year’s events. Even though this is so, the central regions that have consistently had high rates of terrorist activities such as Iraq, Nigerian, and Pakistan that experienced a drop of close to 30% in the terrorist activities