Hate Messages and Violent Extremism in Digital Environments

This report presents research carried out within the project (Ku2016/01373/D – Uppdrag till Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut (FOI) att göra kartläggningar och analyser av våldsbejakande extremistisk propaganda) that has been assigned to the Swedish defence research agency by the Swedish Government. The project will continue until March 2019. The report briefly describes the channels of communication that prevail on the Internet, as and the methods used for the analyses. Since computer support makes it possible to analyse large amounts of data and to identify patterns that are difficult for humans to observe, the analyses carried out within the project are mainly computer supported. Using examples, the report provides insight into how proponents of violent extremist ideologies convey their messages online, which we hope can lead to further discussions about propaganda and hate messages. The report also contains some examples of analyses; an analysis of jargon in a webforum, a comparative study of a sample of immigration-critic alternative media, and a machine learning-based study of text written by violent lone offenders.

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Tags: Extreme Right, Forums, Radicalisation