This Blog post is the first in a four-part series of article summaries from the EU H2020-funded BRaVE project’s First Monday Special Issue exploring societal resilience to online polarization and extremism. The second is HERE. Read the full article HERE [Ed.]. By Inés Bolaños Somoano This post synopsises my article ‘The right-leaning be memeing: Extremist uses…
CVE
By Linda Schlegel Over the last two years, the potential nexus between gaming and extremism has received a lot of attention. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and international organisations such as the EU and the UN have all declared the topic to be a key area of concern. However, surprisingly little is known about how and why extremists…
By Anne Speckhard, Maha Ghazi and Molly Ellenberg YouTube, first online in 2005, was one of the earliest social media platforms used by terrorist organizations to spread their propaganda. Although many such groups have used YouTube and other online platforms for malicious purposes, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] has become notorious over the…
By Ben Lee Video games and right-wing extremism (RWE) seem inseparable. Multiple links have been documented between extreme-right violence and video-game cultures. These include the appearance of terrorist manifestos with references to video games, modifications to popular games to bring them into line with extreme-right values, the presence of extremists on gaming platforms, and a misogyny-laced controversy in video gaming that did…
By Ross Frenett and Joost S Video games have been stigmatised for many years, linked to many social ills including loneliness and terrorism. Not only is this often based on misguided prejudices and a misunderstanding of the gaming community in 2021, but this view risks robbing practitioners of one of the most exciting emerging methodologies…
Want to submit a blog post? Click here. By Alexander Ritzmann The Halle attacker – who killed two people, injured two and aimed at killing dozens more at a Synagogue on 9 October 2019 – was inspired and motivated by online manifestos. In addition, he streamed his attack online and posted his own manifesto online,…
By Robert Örell How do violent right-wing extremists exploit the online space? Violent right-wing extremists (VRWE) use the online space to spread their ideology and to reach vulnerable individuals to recruit online. The online platforms operated by extremist groups oftentimes help these vulnerable youngsters form new relations and build a new identity online. They report…
By Linda Schlegel The rise of social media usage as an everyday activity for millions of citizens has been accompanied by a discussion about the dangers of this development. Echo chambers or “filter bubbles” are often mentioned in this regard.[1] Both concepts refer to the possibility that social media users only engage with content that…
“It is my belief that there is and should be an end to the label, as in my own case […] I am more than what I once was; I am more than a former. Ethically sound CVE practitioners should see me as a person with a future, not just a past.” ~ Brad Galloway By…
By Pamela Ligouri Bunker and Robert J. Bunker The 2019 Terrorism and Social Media (TASM) Conference took place on 25 and 26 June 2019 at Swansea University Bay Campus, Wales, United Kingdom. The conference was organised by Swansea University’s Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law and its Cyber Threats Research Centre (CYTREC), with the support…
