We have examined two mobile applications that have received significant attention in coverage of the Iraq insurgency. The first, FireChat, is a U.S.-developed mobile messaging platform that facilitates off-the-grid messaging; features which make it ideal in situations where Internet access is restricted, and that has resulted in growing user numbers in Iraq. However, it is ...

Efforts at Countering Violent Extremism (or CVE in internationally accepted terminology) online have become an important focus for all social networks. CVE targets violent, extremist ideologies at their core, tackling them via alternate narratives that focus on peace-building through community interaction. It has thus become an invaluable tool to supplement counterterrorism strategies worldwide. ...

Terrorism researchers have long sought to identify methods for challenging terrorist ideologies. The construction and dissemination of counternarratives has begun to receive substantial attention as a means of doing so. However, the effectiveness of this approach is contingent on message targets’ trust in the counternarrative’s content and source. This article draws from literatures on trust ...

Islamic State (IS) has used English-language magazines as a crucial component of its propaganda strategy, particularly targeting Muslims living in the West. This paper provides a quick reference guide to IS’s English-language magazines released between June 2014 and September 2017 examining key themes and propaganda strategies deployed across three issues of Islamic State News, four ...

Social media users, journalists, lawyers and musicians have been prosecuted under Article 578 of the Spanish Criminal Code, which prohibits “glorifying terrorism” and “humiliating the victims of terrorism”. Although this provision was first introduced in 2000, it is only in recent years, following its amendment in 2015, that prosecutions and convictions under Article 578 have ...

This study applies the method of sentiment analysis to the online media released by the Islamic State (IS) in order to distinguish the ways in which IS uses language within their media, and potential ways in which this language differs across various online platforms. The data used for this sentiment analysis consist of transcripts of ...

This report outlines the results of a programme trialling a methodology for identifying individuals who are demonstrating signs of radicalisation on social media, and engaging these individuals in direct, personalised and private ‘counter-conversations’ for the purpose of de-radicalisation from extremist ideology and disengagement from extremist movements. This is the first programme globally which has trialled ...

Research on jihadist online propaganda (henceforth JOP) tends to focus on the production, content and dissemination of jihadist online messages. Correspondingly, the target of JOP – that is, the audience – has thus far attracted little scholarly attention. This article seeks to redress this neglect by focusing on how audiences respond to jihadist online messaging. ...

The study examines three anonymous sharing portals employed strategically by the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) to achieve its political ends. This study argues that anonymous sharing portals such as Sendvid.com, Justpast.it, and Dump.to have been instrumental in allowing individual jihadists to generate content, disseminate propaganda and communicate freely while routing around filtering ...

This report presents an analysis of the production and propagation of online antagonistic content related to Jews posted on Twitter between October 2015 and October 2016 in the UK. ...