NOURNEWS- Ensuring security is the most important reason for the existence of governments and ensuring the health of the nation is one of the most crucial components in establishing national security in a country.
COVID-19 has shown the world that the health security is weak and vulnerable, and to illustrate how fast data and news reach out on social networks, has made it even more vulnerable, At the same time, the spread of rumors cannot be removed from social networks, and this has disrupted the psyche of modern societies, which use social networks more than others and eventually, this psychological turmoil will lead to severe paradigms shift in society.
Coronavirus has forced people to stay at home, and this forced isolation has led to more and more communities using social media.
Social networks which they have no control over, can easily create a content that encourages anomalies. Depression caused by Coronacirus lockdown and forced isolation will encourage audience interactions to these types of content, and follow this line of thought.
To better understand this claim, I will use an example:
The coronavirus has forced a 19-year-old to stay at home, given that the family foundation in developed societies has been weakened, this young man has no foothold in his own house, due to the presence of his parents, he was deprived of the opportunity to watch TV and his favorite programs, in the end he has no other place to go except his bedroom. What is available is high-speed Internet and social networks, as the quarantine period lengthens and watching content that he has always been accustomed to, he will gradually get tired of watching traditional content and his searching mind will look for new things. In the meantime he may subconsciously visit pages that promote joining terrorist networks such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Due to a long period of time that he had, reading and watching those negative content, it might change his perspective, or activate something inside him. The connection that comes after seeing these content after a while and newer and more accurate searches! Eventually he will fall into the trap of these thoughts. And now amid pandemic we have to worry about a young man from a modern society that might have become a terrorist!
This is just a look at the probabilities from one perspective that could happen and the possibility of providing various examples similar to these mindset is very, very high! And of course, this empty half of the glass point of view has been targeted!
Now, if governments have worked on national security from a social media perspective, and the parameter of social networks has been used in the right national security, It is possible to take a serious burden off the government and the executive branch by producing the right content, so that the intellectual flow of the society towards efficient output is in the direction of helping the government, not the occurrence of events that can lead to extremist groups and questioning the national security of our countries.
At the same time, the governments of the world are struggling to provide Medical Products and Equipment such as masks, gloves, alcohol and ventilators. And terrorist groups such as ISIS are gathering recruits to disrupt the post-Corona world.
Today the world has taken a one-dimensional or two-dimensional view of health and economic issues in the post corona world order, and, unfortunately, the national security of the countries, which have suffered a lot from this issue of social networks, has been neglected.
The opportunity to use social media properly in the event of this serious threat to the security agencies of all governments in the world is highly recommended, and there are many solutions in this regard, and no doubt the experts in this field can have more detailed consultations with the relevant authorities in the field of national security.
In the next issue, I will discuss other aspects of global national security during the Corona and Post-corona world!
I will name this column Post-Corona National Security
Dr. Seyed Alireza Behbahani - Specialist in Modern Diplomacy
NOURNEWS