Post Type Description
Tweeting Terror Live: Al-Shabaab’s Use of Twitter during the Westgate Attack and Implications for Counterterrorism Communications
September 18, 2023This article will analyze the motivations for and use of live-tweets during a terrorist attack. The employment of live-tweets offers terrorist groups the opportunity to adopt the role of a media outlet to exploit the advantages of live coverage typically exercised by mainstream media. This poses a unique challenge to policy makers and international media ...
Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat
September 18, 2023This is the first in a series of reports by the Majority and Minority staff of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (Committee) on the threat of homegrown terrorism inspired by violent Islamist extremism. The Committee initiated an investigation into this threat during the 109th Congress under the leadership of Chairman Susan ...
Terrorist Communications: Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google Responsible for the Islamic State’s Actions?
September 18, 2023Four 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, 2023From 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, 2023Freedom 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, 2023This 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, 2023Objectives: 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, 2023Understanding 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, 2023This 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 ...