The new tactic of the Colombian guerrilla uses social networks to recruit young people in Colombia.

According to an investigation, Tiktok became one of the guerrilla’s tools to recruit young people in the country through the glorification of narcoculture and rebellion.

Leonardo González, director of the Institute for Development and Peace Studies <>, in conversation with Caracol Radio, presented an investigation that shows the difficult situation that the country is experiencing due to the armed conflict, since illegal groups are recruiting minors through social networks such as TikTok, Instagram or Facebook.

The official indicated that the investigation focuses on the fact that illegal armed groups, in different areas of the country, recruit minors, especially using TikTok to recruit children and adolescents to their ranks.

For the director, criminals operate on social networks in a sophisticated way, and the official also spoke of the inefficiencies of security policies for young people in the digital world.

“One of the ways to recruit that we have seen is through social media, especially TikTok, which is a network that young people have permanent access to, and these armed groups are there deceiving them, telling them something about a reality that is not true and also showing them war havens in the middle of Cauca and in areas such as Antioquia and Chocó,” he said.

González added that one of the things that draws the most attention in the recruitment method is that criminal organizations distort the reality of war in order to attract the attention of young people, using videos that glorify violence such as the use of weapons, high-end vehicles, women and false promises of power and belonging.

“In some cases they even come out saying “don’t continue studying, no teacher has a Toyota Hilux like we do,” that is, they use a false reality of the reality of war and what is being experienced at this moment in the country’s territories. So, yes, join the group, we are here or don’t miss the opportunity and so on,” he added.

The official stressed that these groups are aware of how the TikTok algorithm works to deceive it, for example, “instead of putting Jaime Martínez in front, they write it with an S.”

The director of Indepaz concluded that it is necessary for institutions such as the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies of Colombia (ICT) to have greater control over this type of dynamics that puts security at risk in the country. “It is also aimed, of course, at the educational community, so that parents, teachers, students really know what young people are seeing, here we are talking about children of 12, 13 and 14 years old, who are the main people who are consuming these social networks.”

For its part, the media Semana learned of a report that indicates that the ELN profiled 11 capital cities for its expansion and thus carry out a large-scale terrorist action. Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla, Barrancabermeja, Cúcuta and Pasto are the points that the illegal armed group has in its sights.

“I want to join”

The AFP found dozens of accounts, hundreds of posts and several propaganda communities for this armed group on TikTok, and to a lesser extent on Facebook. Some 3,500 fighters make up the EMC, which imposes a regime of terror in the countryside and is financed mainly by drug trafficking, according to military intelligence.

“I want to join,” says a young woman in a video set to music with a Mexican corrido. “In private,” responds the TikTok user identified as “.revolucionario_”.https://d-32127970761790516245.ampproject.net/2410031633000/frame.html

The same profile has had more than a dozen similar interactions. “I did military service (…) and now I would like to pick up a rifle again,” says a man in a post where uniformed men are seen training in a foggy forest.

Guerrillas and drug traffickers in the country recruited 110 minors in 2023 and this year there are already 23, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.

For rural youth with few opportunities, dissidents mean a certain financial stability, but many also “end up in there escaping domestic violence” or other armed groups, Alejandro Jaramillo, a researcher at New York University, told AFP. “The narrative has always been that the guerrillas are going to become your family,” he adds.

Sources: Caracol Radio, Semana and El Colombiano.

The new tactic of the Colombian guerrilla uses social networks to recruit young people in Colombia