By Dr Matteo Vergani The Christchurch terror attack conducted by Brenton Tarrant highlights the urgent need to break the destructive synergy between media reporting and terrorist messaging. Tarrant planned a careful media strategy. He exploited social media, like many al-Qaeda and ISIS-inspired terrorists before him, live-streaming his attack and uploading a manifesto in the expectation that…
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By Adam G. Klein When a U.S. senator asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Can you define hate speech?” it was arguably the most important question that social networks face: how to identify extremism inside their communities. Hate crimes in the 21st century follow a familiar pattern in which an online tirade escalates into violent actions.…
VOX-Pol has been pleased to partner with Dr. Virginie Andre of Victoria University (Australia) and colleagues on a number of events, all of which address one or more aspects of terrorism and (new) media. VOX-Pol’s Coordinator, Prof. Maura Conway, contributed to a conference on ‘Addressing the New Landscape of Terrorism: Towards Formulating Actionable Responses’ held…
Course Director: Prof. Maura Conway (School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland) This week-long VOX-Pol summer course is designed to provide PhD students and post-doctoral and early career researchers with an introduction to the role of the internet in contemporary violent extremism(s) and terrorism. The course will employ a mix-methods teaching style and will include…
By Eviane Cheng Leidig A lacuna exists in the study of the radical right whereby researchers focus disproportionately on developments in Europe and North America. Yet, countries such as India, the Philippines, Turkey, and Brazil highlight how the radical right can operate, and indeed flourish, beyond the West. Our failure to incorporate these non-Western case studies…
In 2018, VOX-Pol published a total of 50 blog posts on the theme of Violent Online Political Extremism. The blogs covered topics as varied as crypocurrencies, human rights, propaganda, artificial intelligence, gender, social media, and data protection. A series of blog posts on ‘ethics in terrorism research’ was widely shared on Twitter, and an article…
By Anne Speckhard and Ardian Shajkovci With the collapse of the so-called “Islamic State” in Iraq, and much of Syria, an immediate corresponding and steady decline occurred in ISIS’ strategic communication and online propaganda activities. However, the group’s “virtual Caliphate” is rebounding and still remains very much alive today – it continues to create new content,…
VOX-Pol has released its Violent Extremism and Terrorism Online in 2018: The Year in Review today, authored by Professor Maura Conway. This is the third publication in the Year in Review series following the Year in Review 2017 and the Year in Review 2016. About the Report This report treats developments in the violent extremist and terrorist online scenes…
By Kyle Matthews & Nicolai Pogadl In mid-September 2017 the European Union threatened to fine the Big Tech companies if they did not remove terrorist content within one hour of appearing online. The change came because rising tensions are now developing and being played out on social media platforms. Social conflicts that once built up in…
VOX-Pol contributed to the inaugural Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Civil Society Empowerment Programme (CSEP) campaigns event in Brussels this week. We therefore thought we’d share some insights from a previous RAN event focused on online CVE. [Ed.] Introduction It is an essential part of extremist propaganda and outreach to not only communicate their messages to…
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