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By Sarah Stevenson and Dr Steve Barracosa Practitioners working in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE) are routinely exposed to confronting and offensive ideas and content, including graphic violence, gore, hate, terrorist propaganda and ideologies. Despite this, there is a relative gap in the literature considering the experiences and well-being of practitioners undertaking this ...

Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 12 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. RECENT VOX-Pol EVENTS VOX-Pol launched the report ‘Negotiating Responses to Online Terrorism Threats in the EU: State-Platform Diplomacy 2015 – 2019‘ on Monday 17 November. At the webinar, Valère Ndior and Gavin Sullivan discussed the report with author Marguerite Borelli and host, VOX-Pol Coordinator, Stuart Macdonald. You can watch the recorded launch event on our YouTube ...

By Sara Hill When an extremist opened fire on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, murdering 51 people and injuring many more in 2019, headlines around the world began talking about ‘ecofascists’, a label the shooter had claimed in his manifesto. When that attack was followed by another a few years later using the same ...

By Ryan Ratnam Introduction Earlier this year, numerous Instagram users took to scrolling through the Reels function of the platform as usual, only to be met with extremely violent and graphic content, ranging from animal abuse to human murder. Meta apologised, saying there had been an algorithmic error which had now been rectified. However, this ...

By Francesca Gentile and Isabella Gomez O’Keefe Our recent research, presented at the VOX-Pol Next Gen Conference in Prague, explored how far-right extremist accounts on TikTok use coded language to evade content moderation systems in order to establish and reinforce in-group and out-group identities; recruit, radicalise, and mobilise individuals; and spread disinformation, conspiracy theories, and ...

The 2026 VOX-Pol Summer School is taking place at Swansea University, Singleton Campus, from Monday 22 to Friday 26 June 2026. Call for participants Swansea University is delighted to, once again, host the VOX-Pol Summer School in 2026. This week-long course will run from Monday 22nd to Friday 26th June 2026 (from 9am-5pm) and is ...

VOX-Pol has published a new report ‘Negotiating Responses to Online Terrorism Threats in the EU: State-Platform Diplomacy 2015 – 2019’, written by Marguerite Borelli.  The report was launched online on 17 November 2025 where Valère Ndior (Professor of Law at the Université de Bretagne occidentale in France) and Gavin Sullivan (Reader in International Human Rights Law at the ...

By Keighley Perkins and Nuria Lorenzo-Dus Across the summers of 2024 and 2025, demonstrations and riots linked to the far-right reignited tensions over immigration and cultural belonging in the UK. Heated debates on our screens spilled onto the streets, exposing how radical right narratives are no longer confined to the fringe but are seeping into ...

Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 11 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. UPCOMING VOX-Pol PUBLICATION & LAUNCH EVENT VOX-Pol is launching a new report titled ‘Negotiating Responses to Online Terrorism Threats in the EU: State-Platform Diplomacy 2015 – 2019‘ by Marguerite Borelli on Monday 17 November. An online launch event will take place from 14:00 to 15:00 GMT ...

By Mohamed Elgayar Introduction With over 100 million YouTube views on its most recent trailer, the latest instalment of the Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto Series, GTA VI, is quickly becoming the most anticipated title of 2026. The franchise has thrived because it provides a rare opportunity to explore social behaviours without real-world consequences. The ...