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Amplifying the Voice of Terror: A New Ethics for Terrorism Reporting by Media?
March 20, 2019By 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 ...
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Fear, More Than Hate, Feeds Online Bigotry and Real-World Violence
March 13, 2019By 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. ...
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VOX-Pol Partners on Media and Terrorism Events
March 12, 2019VOX-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 ...
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Regulate Social Media? It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That
March 6, 2019By 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. ...
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Philippines: The Black Flag Flies on Facebook
February 27, 2019By 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 ...
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VOX-Pol Summer School 2019
February 27, 2019Course 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 ...
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Tracing Transnational Linkages on Twitter: Mapping Indian Diaspora Supporters of Brexit and Trump
February 20, 2019By 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 ...
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Top 5 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2018
February 18, 2019In 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 ...
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Is ISIS Still Alive and Well on the Internet?
February 13, 2019By Anne Speckhard and Ardian Shajkovci With the collapse of the so-called “Islamic State” in Iraq, and much of Syria, an immediate corresponding and steady decline occurred in ISIS’ strategic communication and online propaganda activities. However, the group’s “virtual Caliphate” is rebounding and still remains very much alive today – it continues to create new content, ...
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VOX-Pol Newsletter 6(1) February 2019
February 12, 2019Welcome to Volume 6 Issue 1 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter. The VOX-Pol Network of Excellence for Research in Violent Online Political Extremism reached five years in December 2018; a huge thanks to everyone who has contributed along the way. The project has been given a one-year extension to December 2019 by the European Commission. In ...