Blog

By Tobias Gemmerli This article was originally published by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) on 10 November 2016. Our democratic culture can act as a safeguard against radicalisation, if we make space in the public debate for counter-cultural movements and radical political projects. In the confrontation with radicalism and political violence, democratic freedoms are often named the ...

By Amarnath Amarasingam The Syrian war has been, for good and often for ill, an incubator for developing new tools and strategies for digital conflict. Whether any of these actors “win” the Syrian war, their digital strategies will likely be with us for a long time. ISIS and other jihadist groups have inspired tens of ...

This year’s wild presidential campaign was not only a test of two very different politicians but of humanity in general. Because social media is now far more entrenched than four years ago, we were effectively subjected to a giant, real-world experiment. The research question: how exactly do we treat one another when sensitive matters of ...

The United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in July 2016 highlights the need to counter extremist narratives online. In the recent past, extremist content, usually content aiding terrorist activity has become a global concern. This post examines the methods adopted by state authorities and private entities to counter such online extremism. State Response The response to growing ...

The following is the third of three blog posts reporting on discussions at a workshop held in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland on 25 August 2016 under the auspices of the UN Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UNCTED) and the Swiss-based ICT4Peace Foundation and their joint project on ‘Private Sector Engagement in ...

The following is the second of three blog posts reporting on discussions at a workshop held in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland on 25 August 2016 under the auspices of the UN Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UNCTED) and the Swiss-based ICT4Peace Foundation and their joint project on ‘Private Sector Engagement ...

The following is the first of three blog posts reporting on discussions at a workshop held in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland on 25 August 2016 under the auspices of the UN Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UNCTED) and the Swiss-based ICT4Peace Foundation and their joint project on ‘Private Sector Engagement ...

This blog post is a follow-up to last week’s post on Twitter activity following the terrorist attack that took place in Nice, France, on 14 July, 2016 and associated real-world events during the ensuing week. It is part of a larger project exploring hashtag activism in CVE. The first posts traced the online reaction to ...

This blog post and a follow-up next week analyse Twitter activity following the terrorist attack that took place in Nice, France on 14 July, 2016 and associated real-world events during the ensuing week. It is part of a larger project exploring hashtag activism in CVE. This first posts traces the online reaction to developments during ...

By Ryan Scrivens There’s been a shift in recent years in how researchers investigate online communities, whether it’s the study of how extremists communicate through social media or analysis of users connecting through online health forums. In particular, scholars who do this work are shifting from manual identification of specific online content to algorithmic techniques ...