Welcome to Volume 13, Issue 11 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter
Launch of new report on AI tools, violent extremism and extreme violence
Join us to discuss this new report, produced by the VOX-Pol Institute in partnership with the Christchurch Call Foundation. Titled Artificial Intelligence, Violent Extremism and Nihilistic Violence: The Need for Contextual Awareness and Threat Specific Evaluation in AI Safety, the report draws on in-depth empirical research across four categories of threat actor: Salafi-jihadism, the violent extreme right, incels and violent misogyny, and networks associated with nihilistic extreme violence. It argues that evaluations of AI safety that are based on broad, capability-centric, one-size-fits-all assumptions will miss the mark. More granular, disaggregated evaluations of how and why different actors use particular AI tools in specific contexts – informed by subject-matter experts – are required. To this end, the report advances a series of policy recommendations addressed to governments, AI model and tool developers, content hosting services, and conveners.
The webinar will run twice, at the following times: 17th November at 2pm GMT / 9am EST, and 18th November at 1pm NZDT / 11am AEDT. To register, click here.
The report can be downloaded here.
VOX-Pol Hosts Launch Webinar for Landmark Routledge Handbook of Online Violent Extremism
VOX-Pol hosted an international launch webinar earlier this month 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), Dr. Julian Droogan (Macquarie University), and Lydia Khalil (Lowy Institute), the handbook represents a major milestone in mapping the evolving landscape of digital radicalisation, extremist ecosystems, and counter-measures.
The complete webinar recording is available to watch on the official VOX-Pol YouTube Channel.
Presentations and Media
On 15th October, Dr Sören Henrich delivered a keynote address to the Austrian government at a summit on the prevention of Nihilistic Violent Extremism in Vienna. Attended by more than 200 representatives of the national authorities, including police, teachers, social workers and the State Security and Intelligence Directorate, he discussed the formulation of risk of extremist violence in cases involving severe mental health issues, the transition from online hate to offline violence, and his development (with Dr Rachel Worthington) of a new framework integrating frontline expertise with psychological theories and platform characteristics to understand the integrated nature of several digital harm domains.
Anda Solea has a new podcast ‘The Rise of the Manosphere and Tradwife Culture: Why Are We Going Backwards?’ on The Happier Life Project.
VOX-Pol Member Publications
Lewys Brace published ‘Understanding the User Dynamics that Underpin the Overlap Between Gore Sites and Ideological Extremist Content‘ in Perspectives on Terrorism. This paper uses the unique Gore Online Ecosystem Dataset (GOED) to build upon this previous work and assess how individuals on gore sites interact with ideological extremist content.
Lydia Khalil has a forthcoming chapter in an edited volume The Australian Far Right In Times of Crisis that discusses some of the findings of her project Crisis Points on how extremist and malign actors have deployed disinformation to achieve their objectives and how government can harness communities to address the challenge.
On The VOX-Pol Blog
Recently published on the VOX-Pol Blog:
1. Alastair Reed, Jack Springett-Gilling and Ellie Rogers, ‘Where next for online P/CVE?‘, October 14, 2026.
2. Stuart Macdonald and Allysa Czerwinsky, ‘Responding to AI Misuse by Violent Extremist and Nihilistic Actors: Part One,’ October 21, 2026.
3. Allysa Czerwinsky and Stuart Macdonald, ‘Responding to AI Misuse by Violent Extremist and Nihilistic Actors: Part Two,‘ October 28, 2026.
4. Vivian Gerrand, Debbie Ging, Josh Roose and Michael Flood, ‘Hustle, muscle and grift: how the manosphere has grown into a money‑making machine,’ November 4, 2026.
Are you interested in publishing a VOX-Pol Blog post? Read our Blog submission instructions here.
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