Listening to the “Voice of Islam”: The Turkestan Islamic Party’s Online Propaganda Strategy
February 20, 2025
This article aims to map the online propaganda presence and activities of the Turkestan Islamic Party’s media arm—Islam Awazi (“Voice of Islam”). It also discusses its capabilities in terms of producing new releases and attracting online audiences. In order to reach these objectives, this study exploited a methodology which is a combination of open source ...
Reclaim the Beach: How Offline Events Shape Online Interactions and Networks Amongst Those Who Support and Oppose Right-Wing Protest
February 20, 2025
In this paper we examine how offline protests attended by members of the Australian far-right shape online interactions. Tweets about the 2019 St Kilda beach rally were collected. Users were manually classified as supporters (n = 104) or opponents of the rally (n = 872). Network analysis demonstrated that interactions between the two groups increased at the time of the ...
Exposure to Extremist Content and Public Sympathy for ISIS
February 20, 2025
This study examines how individuals’ exposure to ISIS-related propaganda affects public sympathy for ISIS. We examine the extent that each type of communication channel (e.g. online media, traditional offline media, and in-person interactions) affects an individual’s perceptions of ISIS. We use a nationally representative sample (N = 1,609) from Turkey, which has played an important role during ...
How Jihadi Salafists Sometimes Breach, But Mostly Circumvent, Facebook’s Community Standards in Crisis, Identity and Solution Frames
February 20, 2025
We analyzed posts written by Facebook profiles who advocate violent jihad without supporting any terrorist group. They share extremist content in the middle of regular posts, thanks to which they are likely to reach a large audience. We identified to what extent their ingroup-outgroup opposition is constructed in crisis, identity, and solution frames and how ...
Exploring the Relationship between Opportunity and Self-Control in Youth Exposure to and Sharing of Online Hate Content
February 20, 2025
The rise of the Internet has dramatically increased the degree to which youth may be exposed to online hate content, and simplified the process of sharing this content with others. Viewing messages that contain hate speech or language vilifying others can increase an individual’s risk of radicalization to extremist views and the acceptance of violent ...
Cyberhate The Far Right in the Digital Age
February 20, 2025
Cyberhate: The Far Right in the Digital Age explores how right-wing extremists operate in cyberspace by examining their propaganda, funding, subcultures, movements, offline violence, and the ideologies that drive it. Scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and professions including criminal justice, psychology, cybersecurity, religion, law, education, and terrorism studies contribute to provide an ...
Social Network Analysis of German Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq
February 20, 2025
Why do Westerners become foreign fighters in civil conflicts? We explore this question through original data collection on German foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, and test three sets of hypotheses that revolve around socioeconomic integration, online radicalization, and social network mobilization. We conduct link analysis to map the network of German foreign fighters prior ...
Psychiatry of Radicalization and Terrorism in the Lone Wolf, Children, and Women: An E-ethnographic Approach for Analysis
February 20, 2025
Radicalization is a global event affecting different countries and present in different historical contexts. Psychiatrists can help in the analysis of radicalization in individuals who operate autonomously from more radicalized groups. These lone actors or lone wolves are more difficult to spot as there is no unique identification because they operate as self-determined women or ...
A multiplex network approach to understanding extremist organizations: A case study of the Proud Boys
February 20, 2025
Purpose This paper explores the network dynamics of extremist organizations through a detailed case study of the Proud Boys. Using a multiplex network approach, informed by recent advances in research on gangs, we examine how various types of ties influence extremist behavior. Method We first describe three focal networks through which the Proud Boys operate ...
Policing ‘online radicalization’: the framing of Europol’s Internet Referral Unit
February 20, 2025
This chapter examines Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) and its role in the privatized governance of online media within the broader context of transnational law enforcement and European counter-terrorism policy. Established in 2015, the EU IRU monitors online content and recommends takedowns to hosting platforms based on breaches of terms of service, not legal ...