Blog

Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 3 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. VOX-Pol is now on Bluesky! Follow us for updates @vox-pol.bsky.social. EVENTS Reminder for 2025 C-REX & VOX-Pol Summer School This five-day workshop will be held on 9 – 13 June 2025 at the Center for Research on Extremism at University of Oslo, Norway. The workshop is co-organized by C-REX and VOX-Pol and ...

By David Wells Tariffs might not be the only trade obstacle with Trump’s America. “Censorship” could be the next test. There are multiple explanations for January’s changes in how Meta will moderate content across its platforms, including financial ones, the evolving views of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Meta’s policies simply swaying in line with the political pendulum. ...

By Franziska Selzer To combat terrorist content online, platforms must take action. Meta, for instance, reported taking action, including removing content, covering disturbing content with a warning, and disabling accounts, against 30.8 million pieces of terrorist content on Facebook in the first three quarters of 2024. Of this content, over 99% was found by Meta ...

By Jonathan Pieslak On 14 June 2024, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a US-based “anti-hate” organization focusing primarily on antisemitism, posted a provocatively entitled article, “GAI Music Creation Tool Suno Has Been Weaponized to Promote Hate”. The report highlights the ways in which Suno, a generative artificial intelligence (GAI) music-creation platform, can be exploited to create ...

By Brenna Helm, Thomas J. Holt, Ryan Scrivens, Thomas W. Wojciechowski, and Richard Frank This article summarizes a recent study published in Crime and Delinquency. Involuntary celibates, or incels, have been of heightened interest to scholars and practitioners due to their ongoing engagement in misogynistic and violent discourse. Yet the incel subculture is complex, requiring ...

Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 2 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. EVENTS 2025 C-REX & VOX-Pol Summer School, 9 – 13 June 2025Studying Online Extremism: Ethics, Methods and Personal Safety  This five-day workshop is co-organized by C-REX and VOX-Pol and aims to provide PhD students with the foundation skills for studying online right-wing extremism by focusing on methodology, ethics, and ...

Studying Online Extremism: Ethics, Methods and Personal Safety The study of online violent right-wing extremism is an emerging and growing field in academia. However, it can also expose researchers to unique methodological challenges and risks of harm. This five-day workshop is co-organized by C-REX and VOX-Pol and aims to provide PhD students with the foundation skills for studying online ...

By Erin Stoner Trump’s election victory was met with a barrage of online discourse; his supporters celebrated his second electoral win and his opponents solemnly braced themselves for what the next four years may bring. In mere hours after his victory, out of the online woodwork emerged right-wing political commentators, high on success. Of note, ...

By Bo Min Keum Incel communities raise concerns about their misogyny and its potential to take radical forms and inspire extremist violence. However, they also exhibit considerable self-loathing and suicidal thoughts, often discussing methods to end one’s life and their term ‘rope’ serving as a common reference to suicide. I was curious to understand the ...

By Heron Lopes On March 6th, the EU DisinfoLab will host a webinar discussing the findings of “Melodies of Malice”, one of the papers featured in this blog post. For more details and registration, visit: EU DisinfoLab Webinars – Melodies of Malice. Introduction Research on extremism and counter-terrorism has long underscored the role of far-right and extremist music ...