Blog

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism held an event this morning, 6 December 2017, at Google’s Brussels’ offices.  The event featured representatives from GIFCT founder companies, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter, along with the EU Commission, EUROPOL, ICT4Peace, CDT, and others.  The first panel discussion and Q&A included stakeholders from agencies engaged in the ...

The European Commission’s 9th Community of Users on Safe, Secure and Resilient Socieities Workshop on Radicalisation is taking place today, 5 December 2017, in Brussels.  The projects represented are CONTRA, DANTE, FIRST LINE, LIAISE 2, MINDb4ACT, Pericles, PRACTICIES, RED-Alert, SAFFRON, STRESAVIORA II, TENSOR, TRIVALENT, and VOX-Pol. The aims of the workshop are: – To identify synergies and increase links and connections between H2020- and ISF-P-funded projects on radicalisation ...

By Thomas Holt, Joshua D. Freilich and Steven Chermak In the wake of an explosion in London on September 15, President Trump called for cutting off extremists’ access to the Internet. Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner.The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better! — Donald J. ...

By Dia Kayyali and Raja Althaibani So much of Syria’s history has been purposefully erased by ISIS in recent years. And now, we’re seeing another erasure of history– this time on YouTube. Thousands of videos showing human rights abuses in Syria, as well as the channels that feature these videos, are being removed by YouTube. ...

By Tim Squirrell Reddit is now the fourth most visited website in the US. Yet, surprisingly, given its position as an extremely large community, it has been the subject of relatively little research. Tim Squirrell has developed methods of studying the genealogy, spread, and use of particular words on Reddit, as demonstrated by this case ...

By Paul Bernal Internet intermediaries – the social media companies, search engines and internet service providers who supply ways for audiences to find and access online content – are under scrutiny regarding their crucial role in the flow of digital information. Google and Facebook attracted one fifth of global advertising spend in 2016, and concerns ...

Welcome to Vol. 4 Iss. 4 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter. If you have colleagues or friends who may be interested in the content of our newsletter, or any events or research carried out by VOX-Pol, please forward this to them and encourage them to subscribe via our website. Follow us on Twitter @VOX_Pol for live updates and ...

By Elizabeth Pearson and David Sutcliffe One of the key current UK security issues is how to deal with British citizens returning from participation in ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Most of the hundreds fighting with ISIS were men and youths. But, dozens of British women and girls also travelled to join Islamic State in Syria ...

VOX-Pol convened an invitation-only workshop titled ‘Countering Violent Extremism Online and the Impact on Civil Liberties’ Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University on 23 – 24 October 2017. The purpose of the workshop was to explore the challenges and opportunities facing actors engaged in countering violent extremism online, particularly the impact of content ...

By Joe Whittaker In the aftermath of a terrorist attack, a series of events can ostensibly be relied on. As we mourn, the media frantically try to gather information about the attacker(s) and, upon learning that they used social media for some part of their activity, it is suggested by journalists, politicians, and pundits that ...