Blog

The Meta Oversight Board’s Advisory Opinion on Global Community Notes Rollout By Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew & Maria O’Sullivan Meta is a powerful global company, operating social media platforms that shape public opinion and influence elections. However, the company’s attempts to counter false or misleading information on its platforms has been the subject of widespread criticism ...

Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 5 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. There is just over one month to go until the TASM (Terrorism and Social Media) Conference, which VOX-Pol is proud to co-organise. TASM is a collaborative, multistakeholder event. As well as more than 80 papers from academic researchers, there are many other sessions for attendees ...

By Bo Min Keum First: why history? Incel subculture did not start misogynistic or violent. This has been largely acknowledged. What’s less understood is how exactly celibacy came to be about misogyny and violence over time. Understanding this history matters today because it shows that radicalization is not a unilateral outcome of online platforms or ...

By Andrew Whiting Having begun their inquiries in May 2025, the Home Affairs Select Committee last month published their report into combatting new forms of extremism. The report is a welcome addition to the discussion with several important recommendations. The range of expertise the committee engaged with has helped give it good coverage across a range of ...

By Kawser Ahmed As the nation mourns after Canada’s deadliest school shooting in modern history, a question looms for people both close to the events and further away: Why? As with other mass shootings, this painful question is complex and difficult to answer. As reported by the New York Times, an investigation into the shooter’s ...

Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 4 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT Political Theology and the Digital Caliphate: Jihadism in the Age of Globalisation11 June 2026, 10:00-17:00Avenue Campus (room: TBC),University of Southampton This workshop invites contributions that examine the relationship between globalisation and the revival of the caliphate in contemporary Islamist thought and activism. Moving ...

Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 3 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. The Only Way is Ethics: Next Gen Networks Unite The University of Southampton’s Centre for Criminology in the Digital Age is excited to convene an event dedicated to supporting the next generation of researchers working at the cutting edge of sensitive, ethically complex research. This ...

Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 2 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. A list of confirmed speakers and panels for this year’s TASM conference is now available! Co-organised by CYTREC and VOX-Pol, TASM 2026 will feature more than 70 presentations, delivered by speakers from around the world, as well as a wide variety of different panels, stakeholder-led workshops and the TASM sandpit. ...

Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 1 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. THE CATALYST PUBLIC POLICY CHAMPIONS PROGRAMME The Catalyst Public Policy Champions Programme is an intensive, international fully-funded executive-style training programme designed to strengthen policy responses to the growing links between online gender-based violence and violent extremism. Led by the Christchurch Call Foundation, and delivered by the Hertie School in ...

By Sean McCafferty In recent years there has been suggestion of a tech backslide by major social media platforms, leading to a reduction in proactive content moderation. This has become a significant concern for scholars of online terrorism. This blog post examines a sample of empirical data from Facebook that suggests there is a resurgence ...