Terrorist Communications: Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google Responsible for the Islamic State’s Actions?
September 18, 2023
Four of the world’s largest Internet companies pledged to monitor, combat, and prevent terrorists from using their social media platforms to conduct operations in May 2016. One month later, Twitter, Facebook, and Google were sued for deaths caused by the Islamic State in 2015, and their alleged allowance and facilitation of terrorist communication. A growing ...
From Tweeter to Terrorist: Combatting Online Propaganda When Jihad Goes Viral
September 18, 2023
From Tweeter to Terrorist: Combatting Online Propaganda When Jihad Goes Viral ...
Freedom of Speech, the War on Terror, and What’s YouTube Got to Do with It: American Censorship during Times of Military Conflict
September 18, 2023
Freedom of Speech, the War on Terror, and What’s YouTube Got to Do with It: American Censorship during Times of Military Conflict ...
The Cloud Caliphate: Archiving the Islamic State in Real-Time
September 18, 2023
This joint report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point offers a preliminary survey and analysis of one of the largest known online repositories of Islamic State materials in order to increase understanding of how violent extremist groups and their supporters manage, preserve, and protect information ...
PROTOCOL: What are the effects of different elements of media on radicalization outcomes? A systematic review
September 18, 2023
Objectives: In this systematic review and meta analysis we will collate and synthesize the evidence on media‐effects for radicalization, focusing on both cognitive and behavioral outcomes. The goal is to identify the relative magnitudes of the effects for different mediums, types of content, and elements of human‐media relationships. Methodology: Random‐effects meta analysis will be used ...
Discourse patterns used by extremist Salafists on Facebook: identifying potential triggers to cognitive biases in radicalized content
September 18, 2023
Understanding how extremist Salafists communicate, and not only what, is key to gaining insights into the ways they construct their social order and use psychological forces to radicalize potential sympathizers on social media. With a view to contributing to the existing body of research which mainly focuses on terrorist organizations, we analyzed accounts that advocate ...
Online Extremism and Terrorism Research Ethics: Researcher Safety, Informed Consent, and the Need for Tailored Guidelines
September 18, 2023
This article reflects on two core issues of human subjects’ research ethics and how they play out for online extremism and terrorism researchers. Medical research ethics, on which social science research ethics are based, centers the protection of research subjects, but what of the protection of researchers? Greater attention to researcher safety, including online security ...
Digital Dog Whistles: The New Online Language of Extremism
September 18, 2023
Terrorists and extremists groups are communicating sometimes openly but very often in concealed formats. Recently Far-right extremists including white supremacist, anti-Semite groups, racists and neo-Nazis started using a coded “New Language”. Alarmed by police and security forces attempts to find them online and by the social platforms attempts to remove their contents, they try to ...
On Frogs, Monkeys, and Execution Memes: Exploring the Humor-Hate Nexus at the Intersection of Neo-Nazi and Alt-Right Movements in Sweden
September 18, 2023
This article is based on a case study of the online media practices of the militant neo-Nazi organization the Nordic Resistance Movement, currently the biggest and most active extreme-right actor in Scandinavia. I trace a recent turn to humor, irony, and ambiguity in their online communication and the increasing adaptation of stylistic strategies and visual ...