Journal Article
Policy vs reality: comparing the policies of social media sites and users’ experiences, in the context of exposure to extremist content
March 3, 2025Social media platforms have become a prominent feature in modern-day communication, allowing users to express opinion and communicate with friends and likeminded individuals. However, with this revolutionary form of communication comes risks of exploitation and utilisation of these platforms for potentially illegal and harmful means. This article aims to explore the community guidelines and policies ...
The Contagion and Copycat Effect in Transnational Far-right Terrorism: An Analysis of Language Evidence
February 21, 2025This article corroborates the continued threat of extreme right terrorism by exemplifying textually interconnected links across linguistic evidence composed prior to or during attacks in the United States, New Zealand, Germany, Norway and Sweden. A qualitative content analysis of targeted violence manifestos and live-streams, attack announcements on online platforms, and writings on equipment (e.g., firearms) ...
Google and Corporate Social Responsibility: YouTube in the Service of Terrorism
February 21, 2025This article is concerned with the boundaries of freedom of expression on the Internet and, more specifically, with manifestations of terrorism on YouTube. The article opens with two definitions of terrorism. Section II discusses various responsibilities that businesses have: economic, legal, moral, social and discretionary. Section III addresses the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Unfortunately, ...
The Not-So-Silent “Majority”: An Automated Content Analysis of Anti-Government Online Communities
February 21, 2025The United States is facing an ongoing threat of political violence due to widespread anti-government sentiment that has proliferated across social media platforms. Most saliently, these violent sentiments manifested in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol during the certification of the 2020 general election. This research extends prior work on the online ...
The Metaverse and Terrorism: Threats and Challenges
February 21, 2025The metaverse is currently the leading hype in the digital world because of its seemingly infinite potential and possibilities. Large corporations are drawn to the metaverse because it appears as the cutting edge of digital and technological developments. The metaverse is presented by communication technology companies as the next Internet, a leap towards a universe ...
When Digital and Physical World Combine: The Metaverse and Gamification of Violent Extremism
February 21, 2025From early Bulletin Board Systems adopted by neo-Nazis to the Islamic State’s more recent prolific use of social media platforms, an aspect of terrorism studies that is generally agreed upon is that violent extremists are often early adopters of emerging technologies. These groups, organisations, and networks have demonstrated innovative uses of these digital spaces, harnessed ...
Imagined Extremist Communities: The Paradox of the Community-Driven Lone-Actor Terrorist
February 21, 2025This paper introduces the concept of “imagined extremist communities,” a term that encapsulates the unique social landscape where right-wing lone actors, despite not being affiliated with organised groups, partake in a form of communal interaction. By examining the cases of Anders Behring Breivik, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, and Philip Manshaus, this paper illuminates how group-based and ...
Death Cult in Hypermedia Environments: Martyrdom and Terrorism in the Neofascist Movement
February 21, 2025The proliferation of images and videos online commemorating the death of martyrs is becoming more and more widespread within the neofascist movement. Ceremonies honouring fallen comrades today go viral on the Internet in a manner that information technologies could not facilitate in the past. Neofascist organisations share these ritualistic practices on the Internet, producing hypermedia ...
Identity Construction Through Discourse: A Case Study of ISIS’s No Respite Video
February 20, 2025This article investigates the motivations driving the production of ISIS’s distinctive 2015 video, No Respite, released in response to the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the terrorist organization’s spate of violence. The article embraces a unique methodological framework that examines both the relationship between identity, discourse, and critical geopolitics and ISIS’s specific organized persuasive communication strategies. ...
Between the “Camp of Falsehood” and the “Camp of Truth”: Exploitation of Propaganda Devices in the “Dabiq” Online Magazine
February 20, 2025This paper attempts to fill the gap in research and contribute to the academic debate on the online magazines of Daesh. Its primary objective is to identify and understand propaganda devices, which were exploited by the editors of “Dabiq” to influence its readers. In order to do this, the study utilized a classic framework of ...