Policy recommendations

Governments, technology companies and civil society organisations each have a role in addressing social media dynamics in Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence.

Tech Companies Should Collaborate with Youth-Oriented Clerics: Nigeria’s youthful population, among the biggest in the world, is acclaimed as one of the best users of social media to influence political, economic and social change. A host of successfi.il social media campaign trails (#OcupyNigeria, #NotTooY- oungToRun, #EndSARS and #ArevaMeToo) demonstrate the tenacity they apply to digital activism and the enterprising nature of their online battles. These campaigns and the changing responses they have generated have proven that the Nigerian government has also embraced social media as a lens to understanding the pulse of the populace. Not just the government, but the world also pays attention to Nigeria’s youth-driven social media scene. Consequently, tech companies need to recognise and utilise the already budding activism landscape in positively influencing Boko Haram’s terrorist dynamics.

A major way to do this is to employ social media activism to spread counter- Islamic ideologies. The emergence of Boko Haram’s terrorist brand was built on the ability to make the group’s brand of Salafism seem superior and a lot of youths confessed that they came into contact with Boko Haram’s radicalisa- tion agents in universities, including Bayero University in Kano, Alimadu Bello University in Zaria (Yushau, former BUK student, Kaduna, personal interview with author, June 12, 2014) and the University of Maiduguri in Borno state. A major way to counter Boko Haram’s terrorism thus would involve discrediting the group’s ideological motivation and its power to motivate thousands of young supporters to kill and maim in the name of jihad. Tech companies can collaborate with identified, youth-oriented, moderate Islamic clerics and social media influencers who can use their social media standing to carry out youth-focused community-based orientation programmes in universities and institutions of higher learning. Such clerics should be influential, with the ability to affect larger public opinion, and the goals would be to counter extremist agendas, radical interpretations of Islamic religion and other elements in the ideology of terrorist violence (Campbell and Weitz 2006). Islamic scholars with contemporary/ secular world outlooks that fit this role include Mufti Ismail Menks, Yusuf Estes, Nouman Ali Khan and Muhammed Salah.

Tech Companies Should Align their Vanguard Activities to Terrorism Prevention: The annual Social Media Week (SMW) is held in Lagos. Planned for participants to inspire, connect and engage, SMW brings together social media users and enthusiasts from fashion, entertainment, business, travel and politics. Various issues have been discussed in the SMW panels including but not limited to how to succeed in the music industry, the impact of social media during elections and the benefits of having mentors. SMW has however focused on zero issues regarding radicalisation or violent extremism. Because SMW is driven by the youth population, such ventures are crucial to the fight against terrorist insur- gence. During SMW 2019, YouTube announced their sponsorship of Hollywood series Ayetoro Town by Funke Akindelc Bello. Tech companies can thus utilise the leverage which the entertainment industry has on social interactions to increase awareness about the deceitful tactics terrorist groups use to recruit new members and the impact of violent extremism on Nigerian communities.

Governments and Tech Companies Can Collaborate with Organisations Working on Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism (P/CVE):

This is another viable tool to positively influencing Boko Haram’s terrorism dynamics and impact peace processes. UNICEF recruited Snapchat users to launch a campaign designed to raise awareness of the horrific impact of the Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria on children, with Snapchat members redrawing the pictures by some of the children forced to flee their homes. The campaign is designed to equate the transient nature of Snapchat content, which sees pictures and messages disappearing shortly after they are sent, with the notion of the childhoods of victims disappearing (Bold 2015). Other tech companies can highlight specific aspects of the conflict using features of their applications like Google does with historical events on its search engine. Facebook also shares an anniversary update with its users. This feature can be used to share reminders on important Boko Haram related tragic events that need to be kept alive such as the abduction of Leah Sharibu and other Chibok girls yet to be released.

Tech Companies Should Promote Post-Boko Haram Peace Processes by Blocking Disinformation: Tech companies and civil society could work together to curb the use of social media to spread take, unsubstantiated news about Boko Haram activities. Tech companies need to do more in terms of blocking the ceaseless sharing of messages especially in ethnically/religiously sensitive, crisis- prone areas. In India for instance, following a spate of lynching that was allegedly sparked by fake videos shared on WhatsApp, the app took steps, including letting users know when a message had been forwarded and not written by the sender. This has also been introduced in Nigeria and would hopefully have the effect of preventing the spread of unverified news. However, tech companies could go beyond this to actually flag messages that have been shared a little too consistently and notify the recipient of the number of times such a message has been forwarded to different users before the current recipient received it. This would not only arouse a sense of warning to the user, but will also cast doubts on the origin, accuracy and authenticity of the forwarded message. This mechanism could apply to platforms with closed user messaging such as WhatsApp and Facebook.

CSOs Need to Develop Social Media Campaigns with the Right Strategy and Templates: CSOs in Nigeria have acted as conscience tools against political, economic and media struggles in Nigeria. Enough is Enough (EiE), Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement (YIAGA) and Alliance for Credible Elections are some of the prominent CSOs who have advocated for political changes in the country. In May 2016, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) was also a vibrant voice against the Nigerian’s government attempts to limit online freedom of expression through the “Social Media Bill”. The bill if passed intended to “Prohibit Frivolous Petitions and Other Matters Connected Therewith” and included up to two years in prison, or a fine of $10,000, or both, for anyone posting an “abusive statement” via text message, Twitter, WhatsApp or any other form of social media (Kermeliotis 2015). Various social media campaigns including the twitter hashtag #NoToSocialMcdiaBill helped in putting pressure on the Nigerian senate to redact the bill. The CLEEN Foundation (which deals with security and accessible justice), Twitter and Instagram, for example, could be used as a platform tor education where information shared for hashtag activisms arc meaningfully relevant to existing contexts, contain historical analogies and are professionally well researched for public consumption. This would broaden the use of social media not just for socialisation but for mindset reorientation needed in the post-Boko Haram’s societal reintegration and rehabilitation phase. CSOs should more importantly help take social media campaigns offline through activities such as lobbying and focus group discussions (Gibson 2014). This would help concretise actions already theorised on social media and bring pragmatic actions to bear in the lives of those affected by Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence.