Stephane J. Baele The past few years have seen a sharp increase in the attention paid by extremism and terrorism scholars to the incel phenomenon, and to the manosphere more broadly. The 2018 Toronto van attack acted like an electroshock waking up the field to the reality and often violent consequences of the sprawling toxic ...

Lee Jarvis, Professor of International Politics, University of East Anglia, UK A recent survey of public opinion conducted by the independent polling company, Gallup asked people in the United States to evaluate the threat posed by a range of different actors, issues, and events to US vital interests. 74% of those surveyed saw Iran’s nuclear ...

By Matteo Vergani, Alfonso Arranz, Ryan Scrivens, and Liliana Orellana Prior research has found that the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a wave of online hate speech against targets such as Asian and Jewish minorities, as well as an increase in conspiracy theories circulating online. We contribute to this growing body of research with new evidence from ...

By Michael W. Carroll, American University “These are not, like, the nine greatest experts on the internet,” noted Justice Elena Kagan – a reference to herself and fellow colleagues on the Supreme Court. Depsite this, the justices are being asked to negotiate complex arguments that could have wide implications for online providers and ultimately everyone ...

By Michael Waltman The purpose of this entry is to describe how the nature of hate speech contributes to violence and extremism in a way that would be helpful to those who would study and oppose violent extremism. I have studied the social and political uses of hate speech since 2003. Hate speech is discourse ...

By Aaron Y. Zelin and Sarah Cahn In recent years, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been attempting to develop its own polity. This process has not been linear and there has been a maturation process over time. Beyond governance though, an important part of nation-building is creating a similar narrative of people’s own history and ...

by Greta Jasser Incel forums are online spaces with little to no moderation against violent and harmful speech. Yet, despite the almost non-existent community guidelines, users aim to debate, break or circumvent them, as transgression and violent talk are central to the community that formed in these spaces. The term incel is a shorthand for ‘involuntarily ...

By Sean McCafferty This analysis will focus on the role of file-sharing platforms in disseminating propaganda linked to violent far-right lone-actor attacks, examining the recent Bratislava perpetrator as a case study. A pattern among a selection of attackers represents an emerging typology of behaviour within the propaganda dissemination strategies of violent extremists on the far ...

Book Review by Andrew Glazzard Terrorism is, as we know, propaganda in word and deed. Terrorists communicate symbolically (through their choice of targets, or their methods of attack) as well as directly through statements, stories and appeals. There is, therefore, no shortage of studies  addressing how terrorists exploit mass media, from the made-for-television spectaculars of ...

By Charlie Winter Since Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in October, there has been much conjecture about how its changes in policy, particularly in relation to the reinstatement of accounts belonging to prominent white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, will make Twitter a new core arena for extreme right wing (ERW) messaging and outreach. Notably, this ...