Maldives Police Service has revealed over 4,000 social media accounts are operated to promote extremism, hate speech, and hatred in the Maldives.
In a joint press conference held by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Maldives Correctional Service, and MPS to inform the public on the tasks of the home sector, Commissioner of Police Mohamed Hameed stated challenges are faced in preventing acts of extremism and terrorism because of the use of online platforms. He revealed there are already more than 4,000 accounts spreading extremist ideology and hate speech on social media through their own accounts and under fake names, adding the settings in social media applications makes it difficult to prevent such activities.
Expressing the reality is these activities are conducted in digital spaces rather than in physical spaces, Hameed noted information such as learning how to plan attacks, learning networking, and working with foreign terrorist groups is spread on different platforms in different groups. He said that although there are difficulties in preventing extremist and terrorist acts, more efforts were exerted in the Maldives in recent years to address the issue.
