Journal Article
Developing a Responsive Regulatory Approach to Online Terrorist Content on Tech Platforms
April 29, 2025Tech platforms have been through several regulatory phases concerning the countering of terrorist content on their platforms: from a lack of regulation, to the government demands of self-regulation, to the present day where regulation has been implemented across the world. Much of this regulation, however, has been heavily criticised. After consideration of these criticisms, and ...
Using Website Referrals to Identify Unreliable Content Rabbit Holes
April 29, 2025Does the URL referral structure of websites lead users into ‘rabbit holes’ of unreliable content? Past work suggests algorithmic recommender systems on sites like YouTube lead users to view more unreliable content. However, websites without algorithmic recommender systems have financial and political motivations to influence the movement of users, potentially creating browsing rabbit holes. We ...
THE DIFFERENTIATED FEEDBACK FRAMEWORK: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHICANALYSIS OF ONLINE ENGAGEMENT AND CREATING COMMUNITY
April 29, 2025Realizing that after the COVID-19 pandemic learner and faculty engagement is even more critical to learning—as evidenced by ongoing declines in post-pandemic post-secondary enrollment—this paper presents a series of reflections and experiences from the perspective of a student and faculty member. These experiences are understood through an autoethnography, resulting in the creation of a feedback ...
The evolving nexus of cybercrime and terrorism: A systematic review of convergence and policy implications
April 29, 2025This systematic review unveils significant convergence between cybercriminals and terrorists over the past decade, characterized by substantial overlap in tactics, capabilities, and infrastructure exploitation. Key findings illuminate the adoption of cybercriminal methods by terrorist organizations, the engagement of cybercriminal groups in terrorist activities, the proliferation of enabling technologies such as cryptocurrencies and the dark web, ...
Not that lonely! assessing the “socialization” role of online environment in the radicalization process of lone wolves
April 29, 2025This study examines lone wolf attacks, distinct aspect of terrorism, through contemporary dynamics. Broadly, lone wolves are defined as individuals who experience their radicalization processes independently and are often associated with self-radicalization. However, it would be inaccurate to assume that lone wolves are entirely isolated from social processes. Although they do not act on directives ...
Bibliometric analysis of international publication trends on social media and terrorism by using the Scopus database
April 28, 2025Social Media and Terrorism are often studied together and have become the focus of many authors in recent years. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate international publication trends on social media and terrorism, using the Scopus database through bibliometric analysis from 2009 to 2022. Data visualization and analysis were conducted using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer. ...
Behind Blue Skies: A Multimodal Automated Content Analysis of Islamic Extremist Propaganda on Instagram
April 28, 2025Social media platforms, such as Instagram, are regularly misused for spreading covert (Islamic) extremist propaganda. Affect and emotion are central tools used in extremist propaganda, but there is little research into the combined employment of different social media elements, such as hashtags, visuals, and texts, in the context of propaganda. This study contributes to closing ...
Foreshadowing Terror: Exploring the Time of Online Manifestos Prior to Lone Wolf Attacks
April 28, 2025Previous research has highlighted the prominent behavior of lone wolf terrorists to produce and share a manifesto publicly, outlining their frustrations and motivations for their eventual terrorist attack. This article aims to explore this phenomenon, focusing on the timelapse between when a terrorist manifesto is posted online and when the eventual attack occurs, discussing the ...
“Pepe the frog, the greedy merchant and #stopthesteal”: A comparative study of discursive and memetic communication on Twitter and 4chan/pol during the insurrection on the US Capitol
April 28, 2025Following the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol, we sought to explore how two social media platforms were being used concurrently to disseminate far-right memes and discourse. Our study employs a mixed-methods approach to collect a large data set of images from 4chan/pol/ and using the “#stopthesteal” hashtag on Twitter between 1 January 2021 ...
Understanding and preventing internet-facilitated radicalisation
April 28, 2025This paper reviews available research on how the internet facilitates radicalisation and measures to prevent it. It briefly canvasses evidence on the extent to which the internet contributes to radicalisation broadly, and who is most susceptible to its influence, before delving further into the mechanisms underpinning the relationship between the internet and violent extremism. High-level ...