News

On 9 March, 2018 VOX-Pol Coordinator Prof. Maura Conway presented a keynote on the issue of ‘Online Radicalisation: Then and Now’ at London Grid for Learning’s (LGfL) inaugural safeguarding conference. In her keynote, Maura outlined the significant changes observed in extremist recruitment, including that of so-called ‘Islamic State’ and the extreme right, over the past number of ...

On 7 March, 2018 VOX-Pol Coordinator Prof. Maura Conway gave evidence to the UK House of Lords International Relations Committee.  The meeting was hosted by the Chairman of the Select Committee Lord Howell of Guildford in the Palace of Westminster.  The purpose of the meeting was to gather opinions on the changes wrought by digital technologies in the international system, particularly the role of the Internet and its ...

VOX-Pol released its Violent Extremism and Terrorism Online in 2017: The Year in Review today, 20 February 2018. This is the second publication in the Year in Review series following the Year in Review 2016. The report treats developments in the violent extremist and terrorist online scene(s) and responses to them in the 12 month period ...

On 7-8 February, VOX-Pol Programme Manager, Lisa McInerney, participated in the EU’s  Radicalisation Awareness Network’s (RAN) Communication and Narratives Working Group latest meeting in Vienna, Austria. The meeting is focused on how research and evidence-based psychological and neuroscientific insights can be translated into practical information and tools to help practitioners develop more effective alternative and counter-narrative ...

The Swiss Institute of Comparative Law held an international conference entitled ‘The Legal Framework for Countering Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online’ today, 8 December 2017. The conference was organised in collaboration with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UN CTED), the Swiss foundation ICT4Peace, and the Ethics and Communication Law Centre of the Università ...

The third Ministerial meeting of the EU Internet Forum was held yesterday, 6 December 2017, in Brussels.  The meeting was hosted by Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, and Commissioner for the Security Union, Julian King.  The aim of the meeting was to take stock of the progress made over the past ...

The European Commission’s 9th Community of Users on Safe, Secure and Resilient Socieities Workshop on Radicalisation is taking place today, 5 December 2017, in Brussels.  The projects represented are CONTRA, DANTE, FIRST LINE, LIAISE 2, MINDb4ACT, Pericles, PRACTICIES, RED-Alert, SAFFRON, STRESAVIORA II, TENSOR, TRIVALENT, and VOX-Pol. The aims of the workshop are: – To identify synergies and increase links and connections between H2020- and ISF-P-funded projects on radicalisation ...

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism held an event this morning, 6 December 2017, at Google’s Brussels’ offices.  The event featured representatives from GIFCT founder companies, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter, along with the EU Commission, EUROPOL, ICT4Peace, CDT, and others.  The first panel discussion and Q&A included stakeholders from agencies engaged in the ...

VOX-Pol convened an invitation-only workshop titled ‘Countering Violent Extremism Online and the Impact on Civil Liberties’ Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University on 23 – 24 October 2017. The purpose of the workshop was to explore the challenges and opportunities facing actors engaged in countering violent extremism online, particularly the impact of content ...

A VOX-Pol workshop, organised in collaboration with ICSR, entitled ‘Online Jihadism: Beyond the English-Language Literature’ was hosted at King’s College London on 16 – 17 October. Contributors included counter-radicalisation experts, anthropologists, political scientists, and Islamic Studies scholars. Over 90 attendees registered for the two-day event. Simultaneous translation was provided in Arabic and French throughout. Social scientists have approached online ...