UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Tackles Terrorist Use of the Internet and Social Media

The Islamic State’s exploitation of the Internet and social media continues to bedevil U.S. policymakers, legislators, and tech companies. Problems with State Department efforts to counter Islamic State online propaganda have produced another overhaul of U.S. counter-messaging efforts. A legislative proposal in June 2015 to increase company reporting of online terrorist activity was dropped, but it reappeared after the San Bernardino terrorist attacks. Executive branch pressure on companies to do more against terrorist use of social media has increased, most recently in a meeting last month between federal officials and tech company leaders.

Attention on the U.S. government’s struggles has overshadowed that terrorist online activities affect many countries. Meetings of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in mid-December 2015, which I attended, focused on these global dimensions. The CTC Executive Directorate organized a technical meeting involving representatives from governments, civil society, and companies to discuss terrorist use of the Internet and social media. Then, the CTC held a special meeting for UN delegations and representatives from regional and international organizations to consider the technical meeting’s input and share perspectives on confronting this threat.

The CTC has long addressed terrorist exploitation of information and communication technologies (ICTs). In Resolution 1624 (2005), for example, the Security Council urged UN member states to combat incitement to commit terrorist acts. In tracking implementation of this resolution, the CTC reported difficulties countries face mitigating online terrorist activities. However, the Islamic State increased this threat in ways the CTC has decided to address more directly. The December meetings were designed to inform “strategies to guide States and the private sector in their efforts to prevent terrorists from exploiting the Internet and social media to recruit terrorists and incite terrorist acts, while respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The meetings were wide-ranging and populated with calls for more international cooperation. However, turning these calls into effective strategies confronts challenges because, beneath the diplomacy, tensions exist, including in the following areas:

Strategic considerations

Role of the United States and U.S. companies

Counter-content and counter-messaging approaches

Law enforcement issues

These, and other, issues do not mean the CTC’s commitment to address terrorist use of the Internet and social media faces insurmountable obstacles. In concluding the special meeting, the chair stated the CTC would:

Guided by the Security Council, the CTC will work to turn these commitments into strategies that, as its December meetings demonstrated, have not yet materialized amidst global reactions to the Islamic State’s online onslaught. Whether this onslaught confounds the Security Council and the CTC as it has the United States will now be determined.