By Ryan Scrivens There’s been a shift in recent years in how researchers investigate online communities, whether it’s the study of how extremists communicate through social media or analysis of users connecting through online health forums. In particular, scholars who do this work are shifting from manual identification of specific online content to algorithmic techniques…
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By Neil Johnson In early September, three women were arrested in Paris for attempting to detonate a car bomb outside Notre Dame cathedral. “If at first it appeared that women were confined to family and domestic chores by the Daesh terrorist organization, it must be noted that this view is now completely outdated,” François Molins, a…
The EU’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) brings together practitioners from around Europe working on the prevention of radicalisation. The aim of RAN’s Communication and Narratives (C&N) working group is to gather insights on both online and offline communication that 1.) offers alternatives to or 2.) counters extremist propaganda and/or challenges extremist ideas. The following is…
Rather than analyzing the so-called ‘Islamic States’’ use of (social) media, in this post Dr. Matti Pohjonen, VOX-Pol Research Fellow 2016, explores if parallels can be drawn between it and a topic he’s more familiar with: far right anti-Islamic hate speech. Following the Paris, Brussels, and other attacks, newspaper commentaries have routinely warned about the…
By Marcelo Thompson In debates concerning Internet intermediary liability, an often-expressed view is that intermediaries (such as Facebook and Google) shouldn’t be turned into adjudicators, who reason and decide about the legal or illegal nature of content they host, and thus about whether or not to take such content down. But is that a plausible view?…
By Erin C. McGrath and Cody Buntain Reported terrorist attacks increased dramatically over the last decade or so, from just under 3,000 per year in 2001 to nearly 17,000 in 2014, amplifying the number of people subjected to the effects of terrorist attacks nearly six-fold over the last decade. At the same time, the introduction, popularity,…
At the end of April, VOX-Pol’s Coordinator, Prof. Maura Conway, exchanged a series of emails with Brazilian magazine Imprensa’s Gabriela Ferigato for a feature piece she was writing on the so-called ‘Islamic State’s’ online activity. The feature appeared recently and is available to read HERE for Portuguese speakers. A lightly edited version of the original…
by Megan Risdal Many of us know that data collection, cleaning, and processing is a time-consuming and sometimes arduous ordeal that requires patience along with elbow grease. It’s usually the end product—insights from an analysis to feed action—that motivates us to munge. In this interview, Khuram Zaman of Fifth Tribe, explains how a desire to…
by Sheryl Prentice The internet has become a weapon for terrorists, who use social media and other technologies to organise, recruit and spread propaganda. So is it possible to turn technology around and use it to not only catch terrorists but predict and potentially stop terror attacks before they happen? One thing we can do…
By Kirsten Fiedler In the past year, EDRi made numerous formal requests to get more information about the EU Internet Forum. This Forum was set up by the EU Commission to persuade companies to do “more” to fight terrorism. After months of obstruction from the European Commission, EDRi made a maladministration complaint to the European Ombudsman.…
