UK Insight Report Volume 4 Summary
September 18, 2023
The OCCI Insight Reports equip NGO partners on an ongoing basis with the knowledge needed to develop effective, targeted campaigns. Without access to in-depth, data-driven insights into the fast-evolving landscape of extremist and terrorist propaganda, narratives and networks, it is impossible to mount a proportional targeted response. Additionally, the reports highlight recommendations for future counterspeech ...
Using Internet search data to examine the relationship between anti-Muslim and pro-ISIS sentiment in U.S. counties
September 18, 2023
Recent terrorist attacks by first- and second-generation immigrants in the United States and Europe indicate that radicalization may result from the failure of ethnic integration—or the rise of intergroup prejudice in communities where “home-grown” extremists are raised. Yet, these community-level drivers are notoriously difficult to study because public opinion surveys provide biased measures of both ...
Who Dissemnates Rumiyah? Examining the Relative Influence of Sympathiser and Non-Sympathiser Twitter Users
September 18, 2023
This paper was presented at the 2nd European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) Advisory Group conference, 17-18 April 2018, at Europol Headquarters, The Hague. The views expressed are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of Europol. In a speech delivered at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2017, the U.K. Prime Minister ...
Online discontent: comparing Western European far-right groups on Facebook
September 18, 2023
Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their followers. Social media also enable ‘ordinary’ people to participate in online discussions and shape political discourse. This study compares the networks and discourses of Facebook pages of Western European far-right parties, movements and communities. Network analyses of pages indicate that the ...
Down the (White) Rabbit Hole: The Extreme Right and Online Recommender Systems
September 18, 2023
In addition to hosting user-generated video content, YouTube provides recommendation services, where sets of related and recommended videos are presented to users, based on factors such as co-visitation count and prior viewing history. This article is specifically concerned with extreme right (ER) video content, portions of which contravene hate laws and are thus illegal in ...
Terrorists’ Use of the Internet
September 18, 2023
Terrorist use of the Internet has become a focus of media, policy, and scholarly attention in recent years. Terrorists use the Internet in a variety of ways, the most important being for propaganda purposes and operations-related content, but it is also potentially a means or target of attack. This book presents revised versions of a ...
Online Jihadi Instructional Content: The Role of Magazines
September 18, 2023
This chapter focuses on the instructional content, both text and images, published in 26 issues of three jihadi magazines: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire, Inspire’s forerunner Jihad Recollections, and Somali Al-Shabab’s Gaidi M’taani. Instruction was found to be a core component of Inspire as distinct from the varying types and levels of instruction appearing ...
Mounting a Facebook Brand Awareness and Safety Ad Campaign to Break the ISIS Brand in Iraq
September 18, 2023
This article reports on the International Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE’s) most recent Facebook ad campaign aimed at raising awareness about the realities of living under ISIS and protecting vulnerable potential recruits from considering joining. During the course of 24 days in December of 2017, ICSVE researchers mounted the campaign on Facebook using ...
Jihadi Beheading Videos and their Non-Jihadi Echoes
September 18, 2023
In recent years, the Islamic State terror organization has become notorious for its evil brutality. The brutal nature of its propaganda (distributed mostly online) inspires Jihadi sympathizers around the world, encouraging them to use violence against “the enemies of Islam”. This form of violent behavior has also been adopted and imitated by others – including ...
The Role of Police Online in PVE and CVE
September 18, 2023
This paper is written for police wanting an overview of their online PCVE options, and is based on the RAN POL meeting on ‘The role of police online’ that took place on 1-2 March in Oslo. ...