Journal Article

In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive study of online antagonistic content related to Jewish identity posted on Twitter between October 2015 and October 2016 by UK-based users. We trained a scalable supervised machine learning classifier to identify antisemitic content to reveal patterns of online antisemitism perpetration at the source. We built statistical models to ...

The theory of echo chambers, which suggests that online political discussions take place in conditions of ideological homogeneity, has recently gained popularity as an explanation for patterns of political polarization and radicalization observed in many democratic countries. However, while micro-level experimental work has shown evidence that individuals may gravitate towards information that supports their beliefs, ...

This study considers the ways that overt hate speech and covert discriminatory practices circulate on Facebook despite its official policy that prohibits hate speech. We argue that hate speech and discriminatory practices are not only explained by users’ motivations and actions, but are also formed by a network of ties between the platform’s policy, its ...

The increased threat of right-wing extremist violence necessitates a better understanding of online extremism. Radical message boards, small-scale social media platforms, and other internet fringes have been reported to fuel hatred. The current paper examines data from the right-wing forum Stormfront between 2001 and 2015. We specifically aim to understand the development of user activity ...

While it has become increasingly common for researchers, practitioners and policymakers to draw from the insights of former extremists to combat violent extremism, overlooked in this evolving space has been an in-depth look at how formers perceive such efforts. To address this gap, interviews were conducted with 10 Canadian former right-wing extremists based on a ...

Video sharing platforms like YouTube are increasingly targeted by aggression and hate attacks. Prior work has shown how these attacks often take place as a result of “raids,” i.e., organized efforts by ad-hoc mobs coordinating from third-party communities. Despite the increasing relevance of this phenomenon, however, online services often lack effective countermeasures to mitigate it. ...

The alt-right is a growing radical right-wing network that is particularly effective at mobilizing emotion through digital communications. Introducing ‘white thymos’ as a framework to theorize the role of rage, anger, and indignation in alt-right communications, this study argues that emotive communication connects alt-right users and mobilizes white thymos to the benefit of populist radical ...

YouTube is by far the largest host of user-generated video content worldwide. Alas, the platform also hosts inappropriate, toxic, and/or hateful content. One community that has come into the spotlight for sharing and publishing hateful content are the so-called Involuntary Celibates (Incels), a loosely defined movement ostensibly focusing on men’s issues, who have often been ...

Exploring the cases of India and Ethiopia, this article develops the concept of “extreme speech” to critically analyze the cultures of vitriolic exchange on Internet-enabled media. While online abuse is largely understood as “hate speech,” we make two interventions to problematize the presuppositions of this widely invoked concept. First, extreme speech emphasizes the need to ...

Elizabeth T. Harwood on networks of provocation. ...