By Katy Vaughan, Hadley Middleton, and Evan James
The biennial Terrorism and Social Media (TASM) conference took place at Swansea University’s Bay Campus on 18th and 19th June 2024, with over 250 delegates from more than 20 countries. The event brings together a range of researchers, policymakers and practitioners from a number of different countries and disciplinary backgrounds to examine extremist and terrorist use of online platforms, and questions of response. This year’s conference opened with a keynote from Brian Fishman, co-founder of Cinder, and closed with a plenary panel discussion on stakeholder collaboration with Anjum Rahman (Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono), Dia Kayyali (Christchurch Call Advisory Network), and Anne Craanen (Swansea University) moderated by Stuart Macdonald (Swansea University and VOX-Pol). Over the course of the two days, we also heard from over 100 speakers across 32 breakout sessions. This post provides some brief reflections on past TASM events, and our short-synopsis on what to us emerged as one of the key themes of this year’s event: effective cross-sector collaboration.
Development of research
This is the fourth TASM, the first being in 2017. The event has always brought together a broad range of researchers (including many PGRs and ECRs) with other stakeholders, with presentations illustrating a breadth of research carried out across the spectrum of extremism in terms of groups, organisations, and ideologies. Whilst the initial focus was on social media, TASM has also showcased the development of research into the changing ways terrorists, violent extremists, and extremists use the internet, moving attention beyond social media to messaging apps and websites, for example. Moreover, TASM has highlighted research into different types of online content beyond text to visual content such as images and videos – a shift coined by Conway back in 2019 as the need for a ‘visual turn’. In terms of responses the TASM community has demonstrated keeping pace with technological and policy developments with increased research over the years into the technology underpinning social media. And, with an increase in State regulatory efforts, research has also sought to address the ‘practicalities and complexities’ involved in regulating TVEC online.
The 2024 TASM was no exception in terms of illustrating the breadth of research into terrorist and violent extremist use of the internet, and responses. The focus of the remainder of this post, however, is to highlight an emerging theme that represents a focus of the community on not just the work we do but how we do that work. And an important element to this, identified by Macdonald in the closing plenary was on how we can collaborate more effectively across different stakeholders.
An emerging theme
Within many of the conversations following presentations on research concerning identification of, prevention, and responses to terrorist and violent extremist use of the internet emerged the importance of building community and support for researchers, practitioners, civil society and other stakeholders involved in working on P/CVE. Across the breakout sessions, conversations often shifted from the subject matter of the session to the practicality of implementing a particular response, or the question of the importance of research into TVEC when countering terrorism and violent extremism – and from these discussions, the theme of cross-sector collaboration became prominent in relation to the effectiveness of such research.
A number of breakout sessions addressed this theme more explicitly and directly. These included a workshop centred on discussion with civil society actors with varying perspectives and backgrounds of countering TVEC namely, ‘How to Better Integrate Civil Society into Multistakeholder Projects’. And a presentation of findings from a previous TASM-funded research project (Seeing Eye to Eye: Developing Sustainable Multistakeholder Communities) examining the complexities of conducting multistakeholder research and intervention work in this space by gathering empirical data on how various stakeholders view and experience multistakeholderism.
There were workshops led by stakeholders such as Tech Against Terrorism and Meta’s Oversight Board, along with sessions designed to bring different stakeholders together to tackle emerging threats such as a workshop that guided participants through mock red teaming exercises, and a session focused on the question of what we (as researchers, practitioners, law enforcement) hope to be achieve by the use of online data. On the subject of data access, GIFCT led a session on how the organisation can collaborate with researchers to enhance its hash-sharing database. Whilst TikTok provided the opportunity for researchers to learn more about the company’s research API. In relation to regulation, the breakout sessions included a discussion on how researchers can support online regulation of terrorist and violent extremist content. For example, the UK’s online safety regulator, Ofcom, sets out its academic research agenda on its website illustrative of one way the research community may look to collaborate.
Effective collaboration: challenges
Across these discussions it was clear that the different stakeholders face some similar challenges when working in this area. These include those related to ethical implications of the work, such as those that emanate from using visual material within research. And, the security and safety of researchers and others, topics that the REASSURE project team (amongst others), have been seeking to address and ultimately aim to, ‘produce tailored harm-reduction guidelines for online extremism and terrorism researchers.’
What was also clear was that differences in the language, aims and objectives, and resources of the different stakeholders can act as a barrier for effective collaboration. Despite differences some concrete suggestions emerged. For researchers, particularly amongst the academic community, making research accessible and tailored to the target audience whether that be tech companies or policymakers – or to the broader spectrum of civil society groups and individuals – is key to ensuring academic research is utilised and accessed by a broader audience. Moreover, the need to give consideration to the ways in which research can be misinterpreted or instrumentalised, was identified. For other stakeholders, providing meaningful and transparent access to data, is seen as essential to the progress of research in this area. In summary, a key takeaway, was to try to ensure more effective collaboration between stakeholders at the initial design phase (including access) of research projects. Which can in turn ensure more impactful dissemination of research findings.
To conclude, collaboration has long been identified as essential to effectively work to counter TVEC online. This is evident from the establishment of existing organisations and initiatives such as GIFCT, the Christchurch Call to Action, and Tech Against Terrorism. However, there is also a place for more effective collaboration when it comes to research in this area, with events such as TASM providing a space in which to bring stakeholders together as an important starting point.
Dr Katy Vaughan is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Swansea University, a member of the Cyber Threats Research Centre (CYTREC) and VOX-Pol, and currently one of the Co-Chairs of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network.
Hadley Middleton is a final year Law LLB student at Swansea University, currently completing a research internship on the ESRC IAA funded project, ‘Co-creating Impact via Integrating Civil Society: Building Inclusive Multistakeholder Networks (CIvICS)’.
Evan James is a final year Law with Criminology LLB student at Swansea University, currently completing a research internship on the ESRC IAA funded project, ‘Co-creating Impact via Integrating Civil Society: Building Inclusive Multistakeholder Networks (CIvICS)’.
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