Blog

VOX-Pol hosted an international launch webinar to mark the publication of the Routledge Handbook of Online Violent Extremism. The event brought together co-editors and contributing authors to discuss the key findings, methodologies, and critical policy implications outlined in this comprehensive reference work. Co-edited by Dr. Suraj Lakhani (University of Sussex), Prof. Stuart Macdonald (Swansea University), ...

Our colleagues at VPI, in partnership with the Christchurch Call Foundation, invite you to a launch webinar discussing their new joint report, Artificial Intelligence, Violent Extremism and Nihilistic Violence: The Need for Contextual Awareness and Threat Specific Evaluation in AI Safety. Drawing on extensive empirical research, the report provides a comparative analysis across four key ...

By Vivian Gerrand, Australian National University; Deakin University; Debbie Ging, Dublin City University; Josh Roose, Deakin University, and Michael Flood, Queensland University of Technology The manosphere is big business today. Once a niche network lurking on the margins of the internet, this diverse community of male supremacist cultures has grown into a transnational profit-making enterprise. ...

Recommendations for Policy and Practice By Allysa Czerwinsky (University of Manchester) & Stuart Macdonald (Swansea University) As AI use is increasingly embedded within contemporary terrorism and violent extremism, there remains a pressing need to strengthen AI safety initiatives and regulatory responses to better align with how models and tools are used in practice across threat ...

Part One – The Value of a Comparative Approach By Stuart Macdonald and Allysa Czerwinsky There is no doubt that terrorists and violent extremists use AI. As well as its documented use in the attacks in Las Vegas, Florida State University, Palm Springs and Tumbler Ridge, researchers have evidenced its use through both open-source and ...

By Alastair Reed, Jack Springett-Gilling and Ellie Rogers  This post is a lightly edited excerpt from “Online P/CVE Interventions,” a chapter in the just-published Routledge Handbook of Online Violent Extremism.  Over the past decade and more, as terrorist and violent extremist actors have become increasingly adept at exploiting the internet for radicalisation and recruitment, policymakers ...

Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 10 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter Webinar to mark the publication of the Routledge Handbook of Online Violent Extremism Join us for a webinar to mark the publication of the Routledge Handbook of Online Violent Extremism. Dr Suraj Lakhani and Prof Stuart Macdonald, two of the Handbook’s co-editors, will be ...

By Elizabeth Pearson, Ashley A. Mattheis, Joe Whittaker and Maura Conway This post is a lightly edited excerpt from “Online Extremism and Terrorism Researcher Well-being,” a chapter in the just-published Routledge Handbook of Online Violent Extremism.  Over the last several years, researchers have begun to discuss their experiences of harm in this context. A 2019 ...

Neophytos Georgiou, Flinders University Recent media reports have suggested neo-nazis in Australia may be actively trying to recruit autistic young men. Some research – including my own – suggests some autistic people may be more likely to engage with harmful content online, including conspiracy theories and extremist ideology. But this is a tricky area to ...

By Wyn Brodersen and Maik Fielitz Antisemitic content on TikTok rarely announces itself. It arrives as a number, an emoji, a joke about a hollow earth — and that is exactly what makes it spread. In February 2026, a local politician for Germany’s far-right AfD shared a video on Instagram. Its text asked whether “an ...