Chapter

This study explores the significant impact of the internet on terrorism and extremism by focusing on three key areas: cyberterrorism, social media usage, and attack planning. Cyberterrorism has emerged as a major threat, with incidents such as the WannaCry ransomware attack highlighting its potential to disrupt critical infrastructures. The study reveals that the low cost ...

This chapter is a contribution to the debate on information resilience and national security from the perspective of countering violent Islamist extremism in the arc of instability. The narratives crafted by various violent Islamist extremists are a form of information resilience, but in this case, they act as counterforces, hindering state efforts to prepare for ...

The current National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin released by the Department of Homeland Security places the United States in a heightened threat environment due to “threat actors” becoming mobilized by “personal grievances, reactions to current events, and adherence to violent extremist ideologies…” (Summary of the Terrorism Threat to the United States, 2022). Online threats, extremism, ...

The approach from the far-right in producing and disseminating visual propaganda has allowed for a persistent online presence to be maintained, despite efforts to remove extremist and hateful content. This chapter will critically explore the academic literature which considers how far-right actors are taking advantages of the affordances of online communication routes to spread visual ...

The twenty-first century’s development of the Internet has led to a significant shift in contemporary communication (Zelin in The state of global jihad online: a qualitative, guantitative, and cross-lingual analysis. New America Foundation, 2013). While the Internet is widely utilised in everyday life to distribute and share information, it has also created an environment in ...

The nature of terrorism financing has evolved with the exponential development and expansion of the internet. This dimension of terrorism funding has become a critical source for terrorist organisational mobilisation. The cyber funding of terrorism has coincided with the remarkable technological progress that has been achieved in the last few decades. This chapter provides a ...

It has become a familiar observation that social media usage can afford material assistance to the advancement of violent extremist or terrorist causes and can be a tool for counter-extremism and counter-terrorism efforts. This chapter discusses how several core supporting pillars of extremism mesh with social media in apparently similar ways to non-extremist activity and ...

Social media and terrorist financing (SMTF) refers to how terror organisations (TO), sometimes called violent extremist organisations (VEOs), have exploited free social media platforms to raise money for terrorism/fighting/jihad, to recruit, train, equip, and transport fighters, to support extremist religious proto-states (e.g., Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS]), to market/brand an organisation including to ...

Counter-radicalisation is resource-hungry; policy development and implementation, interventions through the criminal justice system, and bespoke one-to-one engagements outside of it are all costly. In contrast, counter narrative campaigns ostensibly offer a simpler proposition. By engaging with various audiences, campaigners from both the state and civil society can seek to reduce the number of people turning ...

As terrorist, extremist, and hateful content has become widespread on social media, platforms have responded with content moderation – the flagging, review, and enforcement of rules and standards on user-generated content online. This chapter provides an introduction to contemporary content moderation practices, technologies, and contexts and outlines key debates in the field. The chapter explores ...