Journal Article

Researchers are increasingly conducting research using primary source data involving observation of, and exposure to, violent extremist individuals, their acts, their online content, and the ideologies that they act in support of. Of concern is that this increased use of primary source material has not occurred alongside a serious investigation of the traumatic outcomes that ...

Social media has become a critical tool for terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, leveraging these platforms to disseminate ideology, recruit members, and mobilize support. This study aims to identify the patterns of terrorist propaganda on social media and develop effective digital communication strategies to counteract these activities. The research employs a qualitative approach through ...

Drawing on a survey of 13,302 online Australians, this study examines the characteristics and behaviours of respondents who viewed child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and fringe or radical content online, or both. In the past 12 months, 40.6 percent of respondents had viewed fringe or radical content and 4.5 percent had viewed CSAM. Among respondents ...

Using a large, national survey of online Australians, we measured unintentional and intentional exposure to fringe or radical content and groups online. Two in five respondents (40.6%) reported being exposed to material they described as fringe, unorthodox or radical. One-quarter of these respondents (23.2%) accessed the content intentionally. One-third (29.9%) said the content they had ...

This paper explores the relationship of transphobia and other forms of harassment found across the events of the Gamergate hate movement through the development of an interactive social network analysis. With the social network being derived from hundreds of events tagged by hand, special consideration is given to the positionality and biases of its authors ...

The article examines online radicalization of youth on social networks. Based on a review of the existing literature on radicalization, I first defined its understanding. Having examined the existing approaches, I joined the opinion that radicalism leads to violence only in some cases. I distinguish between “cognitive” radicalization, or the formation of extreme beliefs, and ...

Online extremism remains a persistent problem despite the best efforts of governments, tech companies and civil society. Digital technologies can induce group polarization to promote extremism and cause substantial changes to extremism (e.g., create new forms of extremism, types of threats or radicalization approaches). Current methods to counter extremism induce undesirable side‐effects (e.g., ostracize minorities, ...

The growth of the online ‘manosphere’ has raised significant concerns regarding the movement’s highly misogynistic discourses and related lone offender attacks perpetrated by incels. This article employs a digital ethnography approach to examine r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill, two forums dedicated to assisting individuals leave the manosphere. Utilizing a gendered perspective, this study delves into narratives from ...

Current literature on online criminal and deviant groups recognises the role of online forums in the transfer of knowledge and socialisation of members, but current research lacks insight on the evolution and convergence of these groups. One area of concerns is how different aspects of these ideologies, most notably misogyny, anti-semitism and racism, are shared ...

Confrontation with radical online content has been empirically linked to the facilitation of radicalization processes. Therefore, building a presence of information about potential prevention of radicalization through an online campaign may be particularly relevant to limit the activities and appeals of radical actors. In this study, we thus examine the effectiveness of campaign material focused ...