Flashnote

Central Asia is at the center of a new digital great game. Its political and economic future is shaped profoundly by Russian, Chinese, European, US and of course Central Asian interests. What happens next could shape the future of the Internet itself. A key reason for this is massive digital transformation occurring across the region. Central Asia’s digitalization is part of a deeper historical commitment to technology-driven development stretching back to the twentieth century Soviet Union. Today, the region is witnessing a dramatic increase in internet users, mobile broadband connections and social media users. 

Central Asia’s digitalization is generating opportunities, but also challenges. The most obvious risk is the way digital transformation is leading a drift towards digital authoritarianism. The onboarding of Central Asians is occurring amidst a complex backdrop of secular authoritarianism, a push for more moderate democractic ideals and a contest between moderate and hardline Islam. What is more, there is a real push from China, Russia and the US to shape the wider technology environment, with profound implications for the future of civic freedoms and digital rights. Consequently, a range of digital harms, including violent extremism, is manifesting across the region.

The risks of online violent extremism in Central Asia

At a recent event co-hosted with the RESOLVE network, SecDev Group presented findings from an ongoing monitoring initiative documenting the scope, scale and dimensions of digital violent extremism in Central Asia. The initiative generated a host of insights into the metastasis of digital extremist groups across the region and the underlying drivers that are giving them a widening audience. SecDev identified at least three key issues: 

• Digital violent extremism is persistent, but has a modest footprint - there are a small number of violent extremist organizations that are disproportionately responsible for a high proportion of extremist content. Many of their appeals are linked to regional grievances, from Afghanistan and Syria to Muslim grievances in France and over the Uyghurs in China;

• Related, online violent extremist content in Central Asia still has a fairly limited reach - multiple groups are using third party networks to amplify their reach. What is more, many groups are also deftly moving between platforms to avoid take-downs and in order to reach a widening audience; and

• Online extremist groups and their content are comparatively resilient - they are growing at the same speed as the steady digitalization of Central Asian audiences. That said, extremist groups are adaptive and learning entities, and are likely to be a persistent feature of the digital ecosystem of Central Asia for some time to come.

The challenge of digital violent extremism in Central Asia requires a managed risk approach. 

Strategies to disrupt and prevent violent extremist content must be aligned with a wider political strategy. Too often, interventions are highly technical and narrowly targeted. Yet the spread of online actors and content is connected fundamentally to wider geopolitical, regional and domestic dynamics such as the continued repression of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang and the impending withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. These tensions will continue to stoke grievances and serve as a focal for radicalization. Ultimately, intervention strategies should reflect these contemporary realities in their design. 

Violent extremism will not be reduced through police-led interventions alone, much less strategies focused on taking down content. It is true that some government and platform led efforts, including highly targeted and expeditious measures organized via the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), have generated some positive outcomes. That said, it has also incentivized extremist groups to move to alternative platforms and to change their strategies of engagement towards mainstream issues and generating new challenges for policing.

Measures to disrupt online extremist groups and radical content need to be mindful of the unintended consequences of aggressive take-downs. There is a risk that overzealous efforts encroach on media independence (including the rights of journalists to maintain confidentiality of sources), lead to indiscriminate surveillance and trigger extra-judicial actions such as the use of anti-terrorist legislation to curb rights. Governments in the region are already under pressure to adopt stringent surveillance and censorship laws and to make use of AI and other smart surveillance technologies across telecommunications networks and city infrastructure. There is a danger that digital transformation and smart city initiatives will lead to surveillance cities and digital authoritarianism

What’s needed is an approach that emphasizes the prevention and reduction of digital harms, and not just disrupting violent extremism. Such an approach would shift the focus away from a “whack-a-mole” orientation to one that emphasizes a public health to harm management and reduction. This requires mitigating risk factors, bolstering protective factors, and testing out measures to evaluate their outcomes. 

Inclusive digital transformation is a viable pathway to the region's economic prosperity and stability for the future. The US, Europe, and multilateral organizations need to work with Central Asian public authorities, social media platforms and representatives of civil society to double down on digital literacy as a way of managing digital harms and preventing a drift towards digital authoritarianism. This requires placing digital citizenship at the core of national digital transformation strategies and working with gatekeepers - trusted brokers - as well as in partnerships to use education, early warning, nudge strategies and appropriate rapid response measures to deliver safer and secure online environments.