Threats to Democracies: A view from Australia
October 24, 2024
VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
From antisemitism to terrorism: Robert Taylor and the Goyim Defense League (GDL)
October 24, 2024
At Manchester Crown Court on 18 October 2024, Robert Taylor was sentenced to four years in prison with a one year extended license period for nine offences relating to racial hatred, two terror offences, two offences related to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation and one case of support for a proscribed organisation. This ...
Ecosystems of Hate: understanding the relationship between terrorism, hate crime, and hate speech
October 24, 2024
Hate underpins a variety of criminal behaviors, including terrorism, hate crime, and hate speech. However, disciplinary fragmentation has obscured their relationships. This chapter reviews the multidisciplinary research evidence concerning the relationships between terrorism, hate crime, and hate speech. It uncovers the empirical and theoretical knowledge gaps, and it proposes a new theoretical framework—Ecosystems of Hate—which ...
Cyber Counter-Terrorism: States, Security Services, and Investigations in the Digital Age
October 24, 2024
The Internet and online spaces have come to play a significant role in discussions over both terrorism and methods to counter it. Recent events have highlighted the role that such online spaces and networks can play in irregular violence. The growth of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria came with a canon of slick ...
Turning to Terror Online: Social Media, Recruitment, and Radicalization
October 24, 2024
Due to exponential advances in technology, the reach of terrorists’ influence now transcends geographic boundaries and is extremely widespread. Steinbach (2016), in his Statement before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, points out that ‘as technology advances, so, too, does terrorists’ use of technology to communicate – both ...
Understanding Inceldom: an adapted framework for analyzing the Incel community within an online radicalization approach
October 20, 2024
The ‘involuntary celibates’, or men who have been unable to find romantic or sexual relationships with women despite wanting to, have congregated in the online incel community. Though initially supportive in nature, the community has become a hotbed for (violent) online misogyny. My ongoing virtual ethnographic research focuses on the nature of the incel community ...
Where Are They Now?: The Costs and Benefits of Doxxing Far-Right Extremists
October 20, 2024
Research on far-right extremism has grown substantially over the last decade, owing to the rise of Trump, attacks such as the one in Christchurch and Buffalo, as well as the mainstreaming of hate speech and polarization. In addition to research, there have been antifascist activists who have been engaged in doxxing members of the far ...
Unmasking Malicious Stance Indicators and Attitudinal Priming: An ‘Evaluative Textbite’ Approach to Identity Attacks in Violent Extremist Discourse
October 20, 2024
The article explores the patterning and functioning of attitude semantics in the practice of identity attacks within terrorist communications. Positioned in facework and stance-taking research (e.g. Tracy & Tracy, 1998, 2008, 2017), it introduces the concepts of ‘evaluative textbites’ and ‘attitudinal priming’ to linguistic examinations, advocating a functional approach to unravelling identity attacks, drawing on ...