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Blog
Is It Just a Game? Exploring the Intersection Between (Violent) Extremism and Online Video-Gaming
September 29, 2021By Suraj Lakhani There has been, especially of late, increasing concern over the misuse of video-games and associated (adjacent) platforms (e.g. Steam, Discord, Twitch, DLive) for the purposes of extremism and violent extremism. Across the European Union (and for that matter globally), policymakers, law enforcement, academics, and counter-extremism practitioners have started to engage more on ...
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A Better Way to Regulate Online Hate Speech: Require Social Media Companies to Bear a Duty of Care to Users
September 22, 2021By Katharine Gelber Hate speech is proliferating online and governments, regulators and social media companies are struggling to keep pace with their efforts to combat it. In July 2021, the racist abuse of Black English football players on Facebook and Twitter has brought the issue to the forefront and shown how slow and ineffective the tech ...
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Taliban Victory Generates Echoes in Bangladeshi Social Media
September 15, 2021By The SecDev Group The devastating terrorist attack in Kabul by the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) and the hasty departure of the US and coalition partners from Afghanistan is generating geopolitical tremors across Central and South Asia and beyond. And while Afghanistan is geographically distant from Bangladesh, the IS-K’s expansive digital footprint and the Taliban’s return to state power after ...
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Online Gaming Platforms
September 8, 2021By Ross Frenett and Joost S Video games have been stigmatised for many years, linked to many social ills including loneliness and terrorism. Not only is this often based on misguided prejudices and a misunderstanding of the gaming community in 2021, but this view risks robbing practitioners of one of the most exciting emerging methodologies ...
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Incel Culture: What We’ve Learned From Investigating Plymouth Attacker’s Digital Footprint
September 1, 2021By Blyth Crawford and Florence Keen In the wake of a mass shooting in Plymouth, England, fresh questions are being asked about incel culture and whether crimes committed by its adherents should be considered terrorism. Jake Davison went on a shooting spree in his hometown, killing five people, including his mother, before taking his own life. As part ...
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Content Moderation, Transparency (Reporting) and Human Rights
July 28, 2021Our Cyber Threats Research Centre colleagues couldn’t host an in-person TASM Conference this year, but instead organised a week of virtual events from 21 to 25 June 2021. This post is the third in a three-part series based on overviews of three of the virtual TASM panels . Read parts one and two. [Ed.] By Lucy Brown The Christchurch terrorist ...
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Algorithmic Transparency and Content Amplification
July 21, 2021Our Cyber Threats Research Centre colleagues couldn’t host an in-person TASM Conference this year, but instead organised a week of virtual events from 21 to 25 June 2021. This post is the second in a three-part series based on overviews of three of the virtual TASM panels . Read parts one and three. [Ed.] By Adam Whitter-Jones Many Internet and social ...
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Mis/Dis and Mal-Information
July 14, 2021Our Cyber Threats Research Centre colleagues couldn’t host an in-person TASM Conference this year, but instead organised a week of virtual events from 21 to 25 June 2021. This post is the first in a three-part series based on overviews of three of the virtual TASM panels. Read parts two and three. [Ed.] By August Dichter How do we ...
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The European Union Moves to Fight Terrorist Content Online
July 7, 2021By The Soufan Centre On June 7, 2021, the European Union (EU) adopted new rules, known as the Terrorist Content Online Regulation (2021/784), targeting the online dissemination of terrorist content. The new rules are the most aggressive effort to date by the EU to compel hosting service providers to remove terrorist content. There is little doubt that ...
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Tech Against Terrorism Response to the EU’s Terrorist Content Online Regulation
June 30, 2021By Tech Against Terrorism Support mechanisms, legal certainty, and safeguards needed to avoid negative impact On 28 April the EU Parliament announced that the regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online had been approved. On 7 June, the law, which was initially introduced by the Commission and has gone through several iterations, entered into force and ...