Blog
The EU Commission on Voluntary Monitoring: Good Samaritan 2.0 or Good Samaritan 0.5?
December 26, 2018
By Aleksandra Kuczerawy The European Commission is encouraging Internet intermediaries to take up more proactive stance in fighting illegal content online. Voluntary measures may lead, however, to the loss of a liability exemption offered by the E-Commerce Directive. The Commission attempts to convince the intermediaries that this would not be the case, and discusses the ...
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Assessing Europol’s Operation Against ISIS’ Propaganda: Approach and Impact
December 19, 2018
By Laurence Bindner and Raphael Gluck On April 27 2018, a Europol press release announced that new action was underway to disrupt ISIS’[1] ability to spread its propaganda online. The press release referred to an operation that commenced two days earlier, which was led by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office and coordinated with six European countries ...
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Decentralised Terrorism: The Next Big Step for the so-called Islamic State (IS)?
December 12, 2018
By Loránd Bodó Understanding terrorists’ use of the Internet is of paramount importance, especially in the context of today’s digital efforts to counter violent extremism. In particular, IS and its unprecedented, successful, multilingual and multimedia online campaigns have led to a surge of academic interest across the globe since 2014. Tech and social media companies ...
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Upvoting Extremism, Part II: An Assessment of Extreme-Right Discourse on Reddit
December 5, 2018
By Tiana Gaudette, Garth Davies, and Ryan Scrivens This blog is Part II of II. Click here for Part I. This blog is the second of a two-part series that was presented at the ‘VOX-Pol Conference – Violent Extremism, Terrorism, and the Internet: Present and Future Trends’ in Amsterdam on 20 August 2018. Last week on ...
Blog
Upvoting Extremism, Part I: An Assessment Of Extreme Right Discourse On Reddit
November 28, 2018
By Tiana Gaudette, Garth Davies, and Ryan Scrivens This blog is the first of a two-part series; it was originally presented at the ‘VOX-Pol Conference – Violent Extremism, Terrorism, and the Internet: Present and Future Trends’ in Amsterdam on 20 August 2018. Like other extremist movements, right-wing extremists from across the globe have exploited the power of the ...
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Islamic State’s Virtually Planned Terror Plots: A Note on Current and Future Research
November 21, 2018
Earlier this month (9 Nov.), Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (30) carried out a terrorist attack on Bourke Street mall in Melbourne, Australia in which he stabbed one person to death and injured two others. Attention immediately turned to whether Shire Ali was in direct–potemtially online–contact with so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS). The Australian Federal Police later said ...
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Crowdsourcing Terror in Indonesia
November 14, 2018
By  Jennifer Yang Hui In the wake of high-profile terrorist activities in Indonesia, social media’s role in violent extremism is once again under scrutiny. The 36-hour standoff on 8 May 2018 between inmates linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS) and prison officers at Mako Brimob (the detention centre of the Indonesian National Police Mobile ...
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The Alt-Right in Europe
November 7, 2018
Read in Dutch Read in French Read in German Earlier this month, VOX-Pol published The Alt-Right Twitter Census, an analysis of the online activities of the right-wing umbrella movement. The report examined almost 30,000 followers of Twitter accounts that self-identified as alt-right in their user names or profile information. The report painted a picture of ...
Blog
De ‘Alt-Right’ in Europa
November 7, 2018
    Read in English Read in French Read in German Eerder deze maand publiceerde VOX-Pol de Alt-Right Twitter Census, bedoeld om de online activiteiten te analyseren van uiterst rechts. Het rapport inventariseerde bijna 30.000 volgers van zelfverklaarde extreemrechtse Twitter-accounts, met gebruikmaking van gebruikersnamen of profielgegevens. Het zwaartepunt van de beweging die door het rapport ...
Blog
«L’Alt-Right» en Europe
November 7, 2018
    Read in English Read in Dutch Read in German Au début du mois, VOX-Pol a publié l’Alt-Right Twitter Census, une analyse des activités en ligne de ce « mouvement parapluie » de droite. Ce rapport a examiné près de 30 000 adeptes de comptes Twitter qui s’auto-identifient comme souscrivant à ce mouvement par leurs identifiants ...