Army Chief argues in favour of controlling social media

Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday said that social media must be controlled to ensure that it is not used for radicalisation of youths.

Gen Rawat, who was speaking at Raisina Dialogue, also argued in favour of talks with Taliban in Afghanistan, but added that such engagement must be held without any preconditions.

“I think we have a lot to do with the media and the social media which must be controlled. For this, if one particular nation starts controlling a particular media, it will be taken as media rights are being curbed, Gen Rawat said, adding, “Therefore, I think the international community must get together in ensuring that the source of the social media is prevented from spreading false information and disinformation because a lot of funds are coming from people who are getting radicalised.”

He noted that social media was also becoming a means for the terrorist organizations to raise funds, in addition to radicalise youths.

“Radicalisation has taken a different form in our country. In J&K, youth is getting radicalised due to misinformation and falsehood about religion being fed to them. This is becoming a form of warfare,” said the Chief of Army Staff. “That is why you find more and more educated youth being drawn into terrorism.”

He said that terrorism was growing as a “multi-headed monster”.

Gen. Rawat indirectly hit out at Pakistan and said that “a weaker nation” had been using terrorists as a proxy to put pressure on other nations to come to terms with them and warned against tolerating such policy. “If this is going to happen, then there will be States that will be funding the terrorists and allowing them to move around in the manner in which they want to move.”