Blog

By Nancy Jamal In the aftermath of the Christchurch attack, attention has been drawn to the role of mass media in the aftermath of such attacks, including by the UK’s most senior counter-terrorism police officer, Neil Basu. Last week’s Blog post also addressed responsible reporting, as does Virginie Andre’s report Understanding the Impact of Terrorist Event Reporting on Countering ...

On 20 March 2019, VOX-Pol and the Security Distillery hosted a symposium in Dublin City University titled ‘Extremism: Online Networks and Offline Violence’. The Security Distillery is an initiative from young researchers for (young) researchers, with the aim of turning complex issues into simple matters in order to provide quality, accessible information for students and ...

By Dr Matteo Vergani The Christchurch terror attack conducted by Brenton Tarrant highlights the urgent need to break the destructive synergy between media reporting and terrorist messaging. Tarrant planned a careful media strategy. He exploited social media, like many al-Qaeda and ISIS-inspired terrorists before him, live-streaming his attack and uploading a manifesto in the expectation that ...

By Adam G. Klein When a U.S. senator asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Can you define hate speech?” it was arguably the most important question that social networks face: how to identify extremism inside their communities. Hate crimes in the 21st century follow a familiar pattern in which an online tirade escalates into violent actions. ...

VOX-Pol has been pleased to partner with Dr. Virginie Andre of Victoria University (Australia) and colleagues on a number of events, all of which address one or more aspects of terrorism and (new) media. VOX-Pol’s Coordinator, Prof. Maura Conway, contributed to a conference on ‘Addressing the New Landscape of Terrorism: Towards Formulating Actionable Responses’ held ...

By Sara Solmone Free speech is a key aspect of the internet, but it has become increasingly obvious that many online will push that freedom to extremes, leaving website comment sections, Twitter feeds and Facebook groups awash with racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise unpalatable opinions and vitriolic views, and obscene or shocking images or videos. ...

By Nathan Shea The first news that militants had taken to the streets of the Islamic City of Marawi on May 23, 2017, came from Facebook. Pictures of masked men carrying assault rifles and waving the black flag of the Islamic State were swirling across social media well before Philippine and international news channels picked ...

Course Director: Prof. Maura Conway (School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland) This week-long VOX-Pol summer course is designed to provide PhD students and post-doctoral and early career researchers with an introduction to the role of the internet in contemporary violent extremism(s) and terrorism. The course will employ a mix-methods teaching style and will include ...

By Eviane Leidig A lacuna exists in the study of the radical right whereby researchers focus disproportionately on developments in Europe and North America. Yet, countries such as India, the Philippines, Turkey, and Brazil highlight how the radical right can operate, and indeed flourish, beyond the West. Our failure to incorporate these non-Western case studies poses ...

In 2018, VOX-Pol published a total of 50 blog posts on the theme of Violent Online Political Extremism. The blogs covered topics as varied as crypocurrencies, human rights, propaganda, artificial intelligence, gender, social media, and data protection. A series of blog posts on ‘ethics in terrorism research’ was widely shared on Twitter, and an article ...