Terrorist Use of the Internet by the Numbers: Quantifying Behaviors, Patterns, and Processes
September 18, 2023
Public interest and policy debates surrounding the role of the Internet in terrorist activities is increasing. Criminology has said very little on the matter. By using a unique data set of 223 convicted United Kingdom–based terrorists, this article focuses on how they used the Internet in the commission of their crimes. As most samples of ...
Beyond Online Radicalisation: Exploring Transnationalism of Jihad
September 18, 2023
Dounia Mahlouly puts to task online radicalisation by understanding it as a goal to create transnational audiences, using a comparative approach to discuss the cases of europe, the mena region and Southeast asia. ...
A Blueprint for Bypassing Extremism
September 18, 2023
The Redirect Method​ uses Adwords targeting tools and curated YouTube videos uploaded by people all around the world to confront online radicalization. It focuses on the slice of ISIS’ audience that is most susceptible to its messaging, and redirects them towards curated YouTube videos debunking ISIS recruiting themes. This open methodology was developed from interviews ...
Countering and Understanding Terrorism, Extremism, and Radicalisation in a Big Data Age
September 18, 2023
Anno Bunnik explores the ramifications of Big Data for countering terrorism, extremism, and radicalisation. With the recent rise of jihadists and other extremists groups in the Middle East and Europe, how do state agencies respond through the use of Big Data? This chapter critically engages with questions such as the extent to which Big Data ...
Terrorist Use of Virtual Currencies
September 18, 2023
This paper explores the risk that virtual currencies (VCs) may become involved in the financing of terrorism at a significant scale. VCs and asso- ciated technologies hold great promise for low cost, high speed, verified transactions that can unite coun- terparties around the world. For this reason they could appear appealing to terrorist groups (as ...
Banning Encryption to Stop Terrorists: A Worse than Futile Exercise
September 18, 2023
Terrorist groups are increasingly using encryption to plan and coordinate terrorist acts, leading to calls for the banning or backdooring of encrypted messaging apps. This would be misguided. It would not remove the ability of terrorist groups to access this technology and may push them to communicate in ways that are more difficult for Western ...
The Evolution of Online Extremism in Malaysia
September 18, 2023
The apocalyptic narrative of the Syrian civil war promoted by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in 2014 had galvanised around a hundred radicals in Malaysia who subsequently migrated to Iraq and Syria. At least forty-five of them propagated their jihadist cause online resulting in the mushrooming of online extremism in the country. The growth ...
How Journalists Verify User-Generated Content During Terrorist Crises. Analyzing Twitter Communication During the Brussels Attacks
September 18, 2023
Social media, and Twitter in particular, have become important sources for journalists in times of crises. User-generated content (UGC) can provide journalists with on-site information and material they otherwise would not have access to. But how they source and verify UGC has not yet been systematically analyzed. This study analyzes sourcing and verification practices on ...
“To My Brothers in the West . . .”: A Thematic Analysis of Videos Produced by the Islamic State’s al-Hayat Media Center
September 18, 2023
This study examines videos produced by the al-Hayat Media Center, a branch of the Islamic State’s (IS) larger media campaign aimed more specifically at Western audiences. Using a thematic analysis approach, recurring themes of 10 al-Hayat videos were identified with conclusions made regarding the specificities of the message and the target audience. It was found ...
Digital/Commercial (in)Visibility
September 18, 2023
This article explores one aspect of digital politics, the politics of videos and more specifically of DAESH recruitment videos. It proposes a practice theoretical approach to the politics of DAESH recruitment videos focused on the re-production of regimes of (in)visibility. The article develops an argument demonstrating specifically how digital and commercial logics characterize the aesthetic, ...