News

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 has launched a YouTube channel that collects video material related to violent online political extremism. Some of the videos on the channel are VOX-Pol’s own material such as British blogger and social media analyst Eliot Higgins’ (aka Brown Moses) public lecture in Dublin organised by VOX-Pol; discussions at the Panel on Monitoring the Net ...

“The self-proclaimed ‘Islamic State’ has mastered the use of social media outlets for its most strategic purpose: to indoctrinate, radicalise and subsequently recruit online consumers while projecting a ‘new Sunni Muslim’ role model and way of life”, VOX-Pol Research Fellow Dr Nico Prucha has said. Dr Prucha was talking to a packed audience at the International ...

Social media companies, law enforcement agencies and free speech activists all agree that open discussions among them are useful and necessary in dealing with the issue of social media being used as a recruitment tool by violent radical groups such as ISIS, VOX-Pol’s Dr. Maura Conway has said. Speaking to techPresident shortly after conclusion of ...

The workshop format is designed to encourage dialogue and debate. In order to do so, each session will begin with 3-4 participants offering opening remarks of approximately 10 minutes to help frame the discussion, overview current policy or practice, offer a specific case study or example, present recent research findings, outline a current advocacy campaign ...

As VOX-Pol’s March workshop in Budapest on the role of social media and internet companies in responding to violent online political extremism draws nearer, its exciting line-up of speakers is continuing to grow. Twitter will be there along with representatives from other social media giants. Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau Chief, blogger, and co-founder of Global ...

VOX-Pol’s Principle Investigator Dr Maura Conway and Professor Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), a VOX-Pol partner institution, appeared on VRT, Belgium’s Flemish language public broadcaster, earlier this month. Professor Brown and Dr Conway discussed the role of the Internet in violent extremism and the social media strategies of radical groups such as ...

Rebecca MacKinnon, co-founder of Global Voices Online and Director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at New America, testified on Tuesday before the the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Sub-committee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation, and Trade on ‘The Evolution of Terrorist Propaganda: The Paris Attack and Social Media.’ MacKinnon will be speaking at VOX-Pol’s 5 – 6 March workshop at Central ...

There was standing room only at the VOX-Pol panel at yesterday’s CPDP conference. The 8th International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) is ongoing in Brussels until Friday, 23 January. The event features 70 panels covering a wide range of current debates such as mobile technologies, border surveillance, big data, encryption, privacy and ...

On March 5-6, 2015, the VOX-Pol network will convene a workshop at Central European University in Budapest on the role of social media and internet companies in responding to violent online political extremism and the impacts on freedom of expression. This call is especially timely given the Joint Statement of EU Ministers for Interior and ...