Blog

by Manuela Caiani The Internet is generally regarded as an important vehicle of progress; however, it also embodies a ‘dark side’ that is not yet widely understood. Focusing on extreme-right organisations in six Western Democracies (Italy, Spain, France, Great Britain, Germany and the USA), our study found that the political use of the Internet by ...

Call for Expressions of Interest VOX-Pol is an EU FP7-funded Network of Excellence that integrates the world’s leading researchers and research groups in Violent Online Political Extremism. The network includes those researching the intersection of terrorism and the Internet (incl. violent jihadists, violent separatists, etc.), the online activities of the extreme left and the extreme ...

VOX-Pol participated in the Public Safety Canada Kanishka Project Symposium held in Ottawa, Canada from 30-31 March 2015. The Symposium surveyed social media/online-based research conducted under the Kanishka Project, a Canadian government initiative to invest in research on terrorism and counter-terrorism. The Symposium assessed what has been learned during the project, particularly in relation to ...

by Paul Gill Over the past few years, a number of concerns have been raised about both the nature of the Internet’s relationship with terrorism and the threat posed by lone-actor terrorists. Despite these growing concerns, both literatures have lacked an empirical focus. The tendency to focus upon theory-building and illustrative examples means that we ...

by Jamie Bartlett and Ali Fisher These days, you no longer need to fly halfway across the world to join your chosen extremist cause. You can be a jihadi from behind your screen, contributing to the effort with propaganda or cyber attacks. The public profile of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) and their online supporters ...

by Beatrice Berton and Patryk Pawlak Jihadist militants have long operated in the pockets of instability which stretch from Bamako to Bagdad. However, they have also been making the most of governance problems in the world’s biggest open space: the internet. Forced to confront this fact, the governments of France, the UK and the US, ...

VOX-Pol has launched a YouTube channel that collects video material related to violent online political extremism. Some of the videos on the channel are VOX-Pol’s own material such as British blogger and social media analyst Eliot Higgins’ (aka Brown Moses) public lecture in Dublin organised by VOX-Pol; discussions at the Panel on Monitoring the Net ...

“The self-proclaimed ‘Islamic State’ has mastered the use of social media outlets for its most strategic purpose: to indoctrinate, radicalise and subsequently recruit online consumers while projecting a ‘new Sunni Muslim’ role model and way of life”, VOX-Pol Research Fellow Dr Nico Prucha has said. Dr Prucha was talking to a packed audience at the International ...

On this week’s blog, Professor Gabriel Weimann discusses his new book, published this month, From Theatres to Cyberspace: The Media and Terrorism which examines changing arenas of terrorist communication with a particular focus on emerging trends in the use of social media. by Prof. Gabriel Weimann The seed was planted in 1972 in Munich, Germany. ...

Social media companies, law enforcement agencies and free speech activists all agree that open discussions among them are useful and necessary in dealing with the issue of social media being used as a recruitment tool by violent radical groups such as ISIS, VOX-Pol’s Dr. Maura Conway has said. Speaking to techPresident shortly after conclusion of ...