Social Media
Blog
Chambers of Secrets? Cognitive Echo Chambers and the Role of Social Media in Facilitating Them
October 2, 2019By 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 ...
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An Overview of Radical Right-focused Presentations at #TASMConf 2019
July 10, 2019By 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 ...
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The Challenge of Drawing a Line between Objectionable Material and Freedom of Expression Online
June 26, 2019By Philippa Smith When it comes to debates about free speech that needs to be protected and hate speech that needs to be legislated, the idiom of “drawing the line” is constantly referenced by politicians, journalists and academics. It has surfaced again as New Zealanders struggle to comprehend the abhorrence of the Christchurch terror attack and ...
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Spoofing, Truthing, and Social Proofing: Digital Influencing after Terrorist Attacks
June 13, 2019By Martin Innes, Helen Innes, and Diyana Dobreva Terrorist attacks are fundamentally designed to ‘terrorise, polarise and mobilise’ different segments of the public. That this is so was tragically underscored by the recent events in New Zealand, where the perpetrator very obviously and self-consciously prepared a messaging campaign to accompany his acts of violence. Recognising these ...
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The Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral
May 29, 2019By Mike Caulfield Sam prides himself on questioning conventional wisdom and subjecting claims to intellectual scrutiny. For kids today, that means Googling stuff. One might think these searches would turn up a variety of perspectives, including at least a few compelling counterarguments. One would be wrong. The Google searches flooded his developing brain with endless ...
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New Zealand Attack and the Terrorist Use of the Internet
May 15, 2019New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern and French President Macron are co-hosting a meeting in Paris today to discuss a New Zealand-spearheaded plan, named the “Christchurch Call,” to eliminate violent extremist and terrorist content from the Internet. The below post summarises the tech sector’s response(s) to the exploitation of their services by the Christchurch terrorist’s sympathisers ...
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On the Importance of Taking-down Non-violent Terrorist Content
May 8, 2019This Blog post is a lightly edited version of a report prepared by the EU Internet Referral Unit in Europol and circulated to law enforcement agencies and member states in October 2018. It is appearing here publicly for the first time, at the request of Europol. [Ed.] Key Takeaways Non-violent material is integral to terrorists’ propaganda ...
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Social media creates a spectacle society that makes it easier for terrorists to achieve notoriety
May 1, 2019By Stuart M Bender The shocking mass-shooting in Christchurch on 15 March was notable for using livestreaming video technology to broadcast horrific first-person footage of the shooting on social media. The perpetrator of this week’s attack on a California synagogue also allegedly planned to livestream the latter, except this did not materialise The use of social media technology ...
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New Zealand Attack: Why are Media Outlets Helping Terrorists?
March 27, 2019By Nancy Jamal In the aftermath of the Christchurch attack, attention has been drawn to the role of mass media in the aftermath of such attacks, including by the UK’s most senior counter-terrorism police officer, Neil Basu. Last week’s Blog post also addressed responsible reporting, as does Virginie Andre’s report Understanding the Impact of Terrorist Event Reporting on Countering ...
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Amplifying the Voice of Terror: A New Ethics for Terrorism Reporting by Media?
March 20, 2019By 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 ...