Africa Defense Forum
There’s a new front in the Lake Chad region’s war against terrorism — the online video platform TikTok.
Terrorist groups have long weaponized social media worldwide for recruitment, financing and communication. In the Lake Chad Basin, where a violent extremist insurgency has raged since 2009, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have taken to TikTok, the Chinese-developed video platform known as much for its security vulnerabilities as its popularity with young people.
After months of gains by Nigerian security forces, April saw both groups resurgent with deadly attacks throughout Borno State. At least 100 people were killed, as the state governor complained of being overrun.
That same month, Agence France-Presse reviewed easily accessible videos on TikTok in which “apparent jihadists and their boosters were flaunting rifles, grenades and stacks of cash.”
Security analyst Bulama Bukarti, a senior fellow with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, warned that ISWAP and Boko Haram are growing in popularity on TikTok.
“Right now, when you go on TikTok, you will see Boko Haram members’ accounts,” he said in an April 20 interview with Channels Television. “They host live programs and live shows where they propagate Boko Haram’s ideology. They justify the group’s violence, which they do in the Hausa language. They field questions from the audience and answer comments that are written.
“Even this week, there was a Boko Haram member who posted a 10-minute video on TikTok attacking me for speaking up against the escalating violence of the group.”
Bukarti said the group is “building a disturbing sense of virtual community.”
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