Blog

by Azra Naseem The Maldives adopted Islam as its official religion in 1153 CE and is a ‘100 per cent Muslim country’ with a Constitution that stipulates a non-Muslim cannot be a citizen. Despite the long history of being an Islamic society, and laws that forbid even foreign residents from openly practising any other religion, ...

Millions of Euro are being pumped into producing online content aimed at preventing young people from being drawn into extremist activities via the Internet, especially via social media content consumption and interaction. Orla Lehane, a PhD candidate at Dublin City University’s School of Law and Government, is utilising Grounded Theory methods to explore whether on ...

by Morgane Colleau In The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication, Lina Khatib, Dinar Matar and Atef Alshaer offer a comprehensive analysis of the group’s sophisticated political communication strategy since its inception in 1982. Although they offer no startling insights into the group’s socio-political aims and approaches within Lebanon or its relations with foreign powers, their contribution lies ...

by Aaron Y. Zelin Ten years ago, an individual said: “We are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our Umma.” The individual was Aymen ...

Last week Twitter General Counsel, Vijaya Gadde, contributed an editorial in The Washington Post entitled ‘Here’s How We’re Trying to Stop Abuse while Preserving Free Speech.’ Yesterday, Twitter’s Director of Product Management, Shreyas Doshi, released new information on ‘Policy and Product Updates Aimed at Combating Abuse’ in a Twitter Blog post, including an update on their Violence and ...

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 ...