United global action needed to deal with challenge of terrorists abusing new technologies: UN chief

New Delhi, Oct 29: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday called for concerted global efforts to deal with the challenge of the use of new technologies by terror groups to foment discord.

In a message at the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee's meeting in Delhi, he expressed concerns over the abuse of new technologies by various terror groups to spread disinformation, foment discord and radicalise youths.

The counter-terror meeting in Delhi is being attended by representatives from all 15 member nations of the UN Security Council.

The message by Guterres was read out by an official of the global body.

"New and emerging technologies have unmatched potential to improve the human conditions everywhere, regrettably they have been also been misused by many including malicious actors," the UN Secretary-General said.

"Terrorists and others posing hateful ideologies are abusing new and emerging technologies to spread disinformation, foment discord, recruit and radicalise, mobilise resources and execute attacks," he said.
Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many vulnerabilities to such misuse.

"We must adopt concrete measures to reduce these vulnerabilities while committing to protect all human rights in the digital sphere," he said.

"This can only be achieved through effective multilateralism and international cooperation anchoring our responses in the values and obligations of the UN charter and the universal declaration of human rights," he added.