Understanding Malaysian youth’s social media practices and their attitude towards violent extremism

Abstract

The internet is an effective tool for learning, dissemination of information, communication, social networking and electronic commerce, among others. However, the internet, particularly through social media, has also been the source of disinformation, hate speech and the spreading of violent extremist propaganda. The use of social media to spread such information is also apparent in Malaysia. A significant number of those arrested for terror-related activities have been found to use social media to communicate, spread propaganda and recruit supporters and sympathizers. Hence, this study attempted to examine youth’s social media practices and factors that influence their support towards violent extremism on social media. This is particularly important for policy makers and practitioners to develop a more robust strategy in countering the use of social media by violent extremists and terrorists to target youth. To achieve the study aim, an online survey involving 400 respondents was conducted. The findings revealed that, youth liked video content the most, this was followed by written content, infographic and images. Information seeking continues to be an important purpose for using social media. While youth’s attitude towards violent extremism was moderate, this study found that, information or argument quality, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were factors that could influence attitude. Considering that social media technology that is constantly changing, it was proposed that, future studies in countering violent extremism to continually look into youth’s social media usage, particularly in understanding different social media platforms, types of content and the message design aspect.