Violent Extremism and Artificial Intelligence: A Double-Edged Sword in the Context of ASEAN
September 14, 2024
Digital integration and the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are providing new tools for insurgents to use in spreading their propaganda through violent extremism. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has come to represent a conduit for insurgents in planning and carrying out their extreme agendas. This article provides a ...
Social Media and Radicalization: An Affordance Approach for Cross-Platform Comparison
September 14, 2024
To accentuate which platform characteristics particularly foster radicalization and extremist dynamics, this contribution investigates the affordances of social media as delineated in contemporary literature, conducting a platform comparison encompassing Telegram, WhatsApp, and X (formerly Twitter). Based on a scoping review, 17 affordances identified from studies researching radicalization dynamics on social media were extracted and categorized. ...
Digital Services Act & Terrorist Content Online Regulation: Analysis and Comparison
September 14, 2024
The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Regulation on Terrorist Content Online (TCO) are both legislative measures enacted by the European Union (EU) which are aimed at regulating digital services and combating the spread of harmful content online. While both measures are concerned with reducing online harm in the EU, they differ in the nature ...
GOING OFFLINE OR STAYING ONLINE? IDENTITY AND STIGMA AS (DE)MOTIVATORS FOR MOBILIZATION IN RADICAL RIGHT MOVEMENTS
September 14, 2024
While the radical right is relatively successful on social media, only a fraction of its supporters become activists offline. Why do some individuals become offline activists in radical right organizations, while others prefer to limit their support to online spaces? Following an inductive analysis of interviews with activists and supporters of a radical right organization, ...
Radicalization Discourse: Consensus Points, Evidence Base and Blind Spots
September 14, 2024
This article examines the consensus points, evidence base and blind spots of radicalization discourse: namely, the approved ways of talking about radicalization/deradicalization that claim a special scientific or scholarly authority and that have become entrenched as a kind of socially sanctioned common sense embedded in academia, the media and government bureaucracy. Drawing on an analysis ...
The Dark Web as Enabler of Terrorist Activities
September 14, 2024
The dark web and terrorism have become closely intertwined, presenting new challenges to existing security frameworks globally. This brief examines the role of the dark web in enabling terrorist activities, from communication and recruitment to radicalisation and propaganda dissemination. It reviews current literature to highlight the ecosystem of the dark web and its ramifications on ...
Combating radicalization by algorithm
September 14, 2024
Many countries have formulated strategies to combat radicalization, and regulating and monitoring recommendations on social network platforms is part of these strategies. This article explores the concept of radicalization and the proposed causal link between recommendations and radicalization, highlighting some of the key characteristics of recommendation engines. Based on this background potential risk mitigation measures ...
Investigating the Cross-Platform Behaviours of Online Hate Groups
September 12, 2024
This thesis aimed to address these limitations by developing a cross-platform analysis framework for online-hate researchers to gain a clearer understanding of the dynamics of the global hate ecosystem. More specifically, the designing of this framework involved examining the main functionalities of existing online-hate analysis frameworks, and the extent to which they address cross-platform hate. ...
Counterspeech: A Literature Review
September 12, 2024
Every day, internet users encounter hateful and dangerous speech online, and some of them choose to respond directly in order to refute or undermine it. We call this counterspeech. Only a few studies have attempted to measure the effectiveness of counterspeech directly, and as far as we know, this is the first review of relevant literature. ...
The Metaverse as a Future Threat Landscape
September 12, 2024
In response to the emergence of new, paradigm-shifting technology that increases capability for the benefit and – as is the focus of this work – harm, we sought to provide contributions across three key areas. First, as a foundation, we provide a definition of the ambiguous and, at times, confusing term ‘metaverse’ and outline its ...