Youth's Digital Skills and Their Vulnerability Towards Cyber Radicalism

摘要

The usage of the internet as a tool to spread terrorism is widely viewed as one of the most important security issues today. Through the internet, it is believed that propaganda and radicalism could easily spread, particularly to young people. This is because young people, regarded as digital native have higher proficiency in digital literacy and capability. This paper will discuss the counterterrorism strategy to prevent young people from embracing terrorism. Then, it will examine the correlation between digital skills and the vulnerability regarding radicalism that comes with the affordances of the Internet. This paper found that contrary to the popular expectations, youth have limited digital skills and have low coping capacities to combat online radicalism. Digital literacy from the older generation is crucially needed to guide them in dealing with this issue.