Blog

Nicholas A.R. Fraser, Senior Research Associate, Toronto Metropolitan University Most of us, whether we admit it or not, engage in a great deal of passive scrolling through social media daily. And while the platforms have proliferated for years, experts are only now beginning to demonstrate their full impact on our attention, mental health, spending habits and politics. Despite the benefits, social ...

By Gerard Gill Introduction The Porepunkah shootings in the Australian state of Victoria have ignited a wave of conspiracy theories and rhetoric, with many in online communities framing the accused killer, Dezi Freeman, as a hero and martyr of the Freedom Movement. Freeman has become the subject of various commentaries, including claims of government persecution, ...

By Ashreet Acharya In May 2025, a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir tragically claimed the lives of 26 civilians. This escalated military tensions between Indian and Pakistan and underscored the continuous and evolving challenge of terrorist financing under pressure. Directly responding to the attack, the Indian defence services launched targeted missile strikes against ...

By Sophia Rothut & Brigitte Naderer Political content does not spread solely organically: paid advertising campaigns on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram allow parties, organisations, activists, and other political actors to purchase reach for their messaging. Thereby, the advertisers’ aim is to expand their support and influence among those receiving the ad. Targeting ...

By Samuel Olaniran In global discussions about online extremism, messaging apps such as WhatsApp often receive less attention than platforms like Facebook, X, or TikTok. Yet WhatsApp has become one of the most powerful political tools in the Global South. Its encrypted design, ubiquity, and integration into everyday social life make it a particularly attractive ...

Kristy Campion, Charles Sturt University and Emma Colvin, Charles Sturt University Vulnerable young Australians are being targeted and recruited into extremist organisations. Sometimes, adult recruiters use grooming and coercion. Young people are seen as easy targets because they are looking for a place to belong, rather than holding deep-seated ideological beliefs. Last week, Australia’s Independent ...

By Alastair Reed, Anne Craanen, and Arthur Bradley In the digital age, the aftermath of terrorist attacks is often captured and disseminated not only by the perpetrators, but also by bystanders. Mobile phone videos, CCTV footage, body cam recordings, and livestreams routinely surface online within moments of such events. While this bystander content is not ...

By Nicola Mathieson, Audrey Gagnon, and Ashton Kingdon In June 2025, C-REX and VOX-Pol hosted the second edition of the PhD Summer School ‘Studying Online Far-Right Extremism: Methods, Personal Safety, and Ethics’, organised by Audrey Gagnon (University of Ottawa) and Nicola Mathieson (University of Liverpool).  In addition to lectures on qualitative and quantitative approaches to ...

By Audrey Gagnon and Nicola Mathieson The Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) and VOX-Pol recently hosted a PhD Summer School on Studying Online Far-Right Extremism. The Summer School, which took place at the University of Oslo from June 9-13, was organized by Audrey Gagnon (University of Ottawa) and Nicola Mathieson (University of Liverpool). It ...

By Ninian Frenguelli It is increasingly difficult to access data from social media platforms. Researcher access to Meta platforms was removed in 2024 when CrowdTangle was shut down, but it was already being slowly restricted prior to this with Meta closing accounts of researchers in 2021. Researchers are in a difficult position: with no official ...