Post Type Description
Gaming and Extremism: The Extreme Right on Discord
September 18, 2023This briefing is part of ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series exploring the role online gaming plays in the strategy of far-right extremists in the UK and globally. This is part of a broader programme on the ‘Future of Extremism’ being delivered by ISD in the second half of 2021, charting the transformational shifts in the ...
Hatescape: An In-Depth Analysis of Extremism and Hate Speech on TikTok
September 18, 2023This report aims to provide an in-depth analysis on the state of extremism and hate on TikTok. It is the culmination of three months of research on a sample of 1,030 videos, equivalent to just over eight hours of content, posted on the social media platform. These videos were used to promote hatred, as well ...
Gaming and Extremism: The Extreme Right on DLive
September 18, 2023This briefing is part of ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series exploring the role online gaming plays in the strategy of far-right extremists in the UK and globally. This is part of a broader programme on the ‘Future of Extremism’ being delivered by ISD in the second half of 2021, charting the transformational shifts in the ...
Gaming and Extremism: The Extreme Right on Twitch
September 18, 2023This briefing is part of ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series exploring the role online gaming plays in the strategy of far-right extremists in the UK and globally. This is part of a broader programme on the ‘Future of Extremism’ being delivered by ISD in the second half of 2021, charting the transformational shifts in the ...
Who Should Regulate Extremist Content Online?
September 18, 2023As liberal democracies grapple with the evolution of online political extremism, in addition to governments, social media and internet infrastructure companies have found themselves making more and more decisions about who gets to use their platforms, and what people say online. This raises the question that this paper explores, who should regulate extremist content online? ...
Topologies and Tribulations of Gettr
September 18, 2023On July 1, 2021, a new social network modeled after Twitter was launched by former Trump spokesman Jason Miller, with assistance and promotion by exiled Chinese businessman Miles Guo, form Trump strategist Steve Bannon, and others. Today, the Stanford Internet Observatory is releasing the first comprehensive analysis of the new platform. We chart the growth ...
Motivational Imbalance in Jihadi Online Recruitment
September 18, 2023The Internet and online platforms have become a useful instrument for modern terrorists’ recruitment. Numerous studies explored the online recruitment of Jihadi groups and especially of the Islamic State (ISIS) that managed to recruit over 40,000 fighters from as many as 90 countries. Yet, these studies, focusing mainly on the online platforms and the appeals ...
Digitalization and the Musical Mediation of Anti-Democratic Ideologies in Alt-Right Forums
September 18, 2023Popular music research has explored digital technologies’ potential for democratizing music consumption, distribution, and production. This article, however, focuses on the anti-democratic implications of digitalization for popular music by exploring discussions of music in 1,173 posts in 6 Alt-Right forums, from 2010–2018. It demonstrates that, first, owing to algorithmic architecture, interpretations of musical politics are ...
Open Source, Self Defence: Tackling the Challenge of Extremist Websites and Open Source Tech
September 18, 2023ISD has analysed 100 websites linked to the far right and white supremacist communities to establish which tools, services or platforms are most commonly in use. This small sample is intended only as a snapshot of the broader landscape, but nonetheless reveals some interesting trends which are worthy of discussion. ...
Online Group Dynamics Reveal New Gel Science
September 18, 2023A better understanding of how support evolves online for undesirable behaviors such as extremism and hate, could help mitigate future harms. Here we show how the highly irregular growth curves of groups supporting two high-profile extremism movements, can be accurately described if we generalize existing gelation models to account for the facts that the number ...