Baghdad – The National Security Agency announced on Wednesday a series of measures to curb hate speech and confront content that threatens community peace, revealing the closure of approximately 2,700 pages on social media that promote terrorism, drugs, the banned Ba'ath Party, and practices of extortion and cyber fraud.
The official spokesman for the agency, Arshad Al-Hakim, stated in a statement followed by the News Video Agency that the issue of hate speech represents one of the main files the agency is working on, considering it a threat to public peace, especially with its increasing activity on social media during religious occasions.
Al-Hakim explained that the agency relies on a series of measures to confront this speech, starting with monitoring and follow-up, then boycotting and obtaining judicial approvals, culminating in technical efforts to identify the ownership of the pages, before contacting the national point of contact to take the necessary measures against them.
He added that during the first half of this year, the agency was able to monitor about 5,000 pages promoting terrorism, drugs, and the banned Ba'ath Party, in addition to pages engaged in extortion, cyber and financial fraud, and spreading hate and violence.
He noted that the number of pages that have been closed has reached around 2,700 since the beginning of the year until now, confirming ongoing coordination with the national point of contact and specialized global companies, as well as the agency's judge in Baghdad and judges in the provinces.
In the cybersecurity file, Al-Hakim revealed that the National Security Agency has managed to monitor and address more than 750 cyberattacks targeting Iraqi government sites in the past period, confirming ongoing efforts to confront cyber threats and protect governmental institutions.