By Alex Borkowski, York University, Canada; Marion Tempest Grant, York University, Canada, and Natalie Coulter, York University, Canada An increasingly volatile online environment is affecting our society, including members of the academic community and research they pursue. Graduate students are especially vulnerable to online hate, because cultivating a visible social media presence is considered essential ...

By Ellie Rogers Most major tech companies are actively removing illegal content such as terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC) as part of the e-Commerce directive. However, there has been an increasing focus on the need for tech companies to address borderline TVEC proportionately, consistently and transparently. There is no universal definition for borderline TVEC, ...

By Kenneth R. Hanson, C.J. Pascoe, and Ryan Light This article summarizes a recent paper published in Sex Roles that examines how cultural issues of masculinity, whiteness, and straightness are expressed and valued on the semi-anonymous online forum Reddit.     Today’s world might seem more egalitarian than ever, with legal rights protecting numerous minority populations ...

By Lindsay Hahn Terrorists killed more than 20,000 people in 2019 alone. According to the Global Terrorism Database, more than 900,000 actors were responsible for directly perpetrating over 200,000 terrorist attacks between the years of 1970-2019. Countless additional actors are likely to have indirectly helped the groups plan their attacks. Although it might seem reasonable ...

By Elizabeth Pearson  In 2018 Twitter removed radical right activist turned self-styled ‘journalist’ Tommy Robinson from the platform. Five years later, he is back. What are the implications for British politics and extremism? Tommy Robinson is the latest of a group of extreme and anti-Islam actors Elon Musk has readmitted to Twitter/X. Robinson’s account reappeared ...

By Simon a. Purdue Introduction Reproductive politics lie at the very heart of the gender ideology of the extreme-right. The ‘propagation of the race and nation’ has been a core tenet of social thought across the right-wing spectrum for the past two hundred years, and while within conservatism the racial rhetoric has been largely replaced ...

By Seán Looney Introduction Kiwifarms was an internet forum known for its active targeting and harassment of trans people. In August 2022, the forum set its sights on Canadian Twitch Streamer and trans activist, Clara Sorrenti, also known as Keffals. The forum members called in the police to a fake bomb threat to her home and ...

By Sophia Rothut, Heidi Schulze, Diana Rieger, Catherine Bouko, Brigitte Naderer The European regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online (TCO Regulation) is, like the DSA, an approach to combating the spread of terrorist content online that is (1) transnational (EU-wide) and (2) holds Hosting Service Providers (HSPs) accountable. According to this regulation, ...

Introductions The intersection between gaming and violent extremism remains understudied and, often, its conclusions tend to be prematurely and problematically drawn. The overused tropes that gaming leads to violent behaviour or that all gamers are extremists, are just a few. This is not to say that the gaming space is without fault. Violent extremists are ...

As one of the fastest growing entertainment sectors in the world, online video gaming has garnered far more attention of late – both positive and negative. In light of the exploitation of gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms by (violent) extremist actors and the gamification of violent extremism, there continues to be increasing concerns over threats of ...