Zoom-ing in on White Supremacy: Zoom-Bombing Anti-Racism Efforts
September 18, 2023
I am interested in contributing further knowledge regarding the alt-right, white supremacy, and the Internet by exploring the sinister conducting of Zoom-bombing anti-racist events. Here, I will investigate how white supremacy through the Internet can lead to violence, abuse, and fear that “transcends the virtual world to damage real, live humans beings” via Zoom-bombing, an ...
Portrayals of Women on Ethno-Nationalist and Radical Islamic Websites in Bosnia And Herzegovina
September 18, 2023
This article presents an original analysis of portrayals of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on websites with radical and extremist content. We analyze and discuss key online narratives about women and their societal roles from 100 sampled online articles published on ten websites that primarily propagate right-wing, nationalist and Salafist thinking. The article shows ...
Extremism in the Digital Era
September 18, 2023
This book constitutes a journey into the obscure field of sectarian-guided discourses of radical Islamist groups. It provides new insights into the ideological mechanisms utilized by such organizations to incite sectarian conflicts and recruit local and foreign guardians to their alleged cause. This book examines diverse aspects and dimensions of the discourses of Sunni-based ISIS ...
YouTube Regrets: A crowdsourced investigation into YouTube’s recommendation algorithm
September 18, 2023
Faced with YouTube’s continuous refusal to engage, Mozilla built a browser extension, RegretsReporter, that allows people to donate data about the YouTube videos they regret watching on the platform. Through one of the biggest crowdsourced investigations into YouTube, we’ve uncovered new information that warrants urgent attention and action from lawmakers and the public. We now ...
Examining the interactive effects of the filter bubble and the echo chamber on radicalization
September 18, 2023
Objectives Despite popular notions of “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” contributing to radicalization, little evidence exists to support these hypotheses. However, social structure social learning theory would suggest a hereto untested interaction effect. Methodology An RCT of new Twitter users in which participants were randomly assigned to a treatment of “filter bubble” (personalization algorithm) suppression. ...
Barriers to Entry to Jihadist Activism on the Internet
September 18, 2023
The present article contends that terrorist activism on the Internet is determined by the technical configuration and ease of use of the tool. Engagement in Internet activities considered criminal offenses is not only explained by a progression in the level of radicalization of the individual. Rather, the type of barriers to entry which they must ...
The personality and propaganda puzzle: Exploring the effect of personality on exposure to extremist content online
September 18, 2023
Objective: This paper applies Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory to explain the role of exposure to violent extremist content online in the wider psychological process of “radicalization.” Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory is a suitable theory to apply to this domain given that (a) the motivation to engage in violent extremism is widely discussed, yet motivational theories are rarely ...
White Supremacy Search Trends in the United States
September 18, 2023
Moonshot partnered with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to analyze US search traffic in response to the threats posed by white supremacist narratives and ideology in the US this past year. The dominant socio-political events of 2020-2021—the COVID-19 pandemic, the widespread BLM protests and counter-protests, and the presidential election—coalesced to create fertile ground for white supremacists ...
Online Hate and Zeitgeist of Fear: A Five-Country Longitudinal Analysis of Hate Exposure and Fear of Terrorism After the Paris Terrorist Attacks in 2015
September 18, 2023
Acts of terror lead to both a rise of an extended sense of fear that goes beyond the physical location of the attacks and to increased expressions of online hate. In this longitudinal study, we analyzed dynamics between the exposure to online hate and the fear of terrorism after the Paris attacks in November 13, ...
Operating with impunity: legal review
September 18, 2023
The independent Commission for Countering Extremism has published a legal review, to examine whether existing legislation adequately deals with hateful extremism. ...