Journal Article
The Criminalization of Online Terrorism Preparatory Acts Under International Law
February 20, 2025Terrorist organizations increasingly resort to the Internet to promote terrorism, recruit new terrorists, plan and finance their operations. The paper first proposes a definition of terrorism, cyberterrorism, and online terrorism preparatory acts. It then analyses whether current binding international instruments on terrorism, organized crime or cybercrime could prohibit cyber activities precursor of terrorism. The paper ...
Cryptoterrorism: Assessing the Utility of Blockchain Technologies for Terrorist Enterprise
February 20, 2025Much recent policy discourse has pivoted on the relationship between terrorist campaigns and an emergent feature of the global financial landscape in the form of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are a subset of digital currencies that are distributed by the developers thereof. The various unique features of cryptocurrencies have led to discussion in punditry about how terrorists ...
Online Jihadi Storytelling: The Case of Najm al-Din Azad
February 20, 2025Despite great interest in the importance of “narrative” to the global jihadi movement, research on actual examples of jihadi storytelling has been very limited to date. In this paper, I discuss the phenomenon of jihadi storytelling, specifically in digital contexts, focusing on the case study of one storyteller in particular: “Najm al-Din Azad”, a Saudi ...
Listening to the “Voice of Islam”: The Turkestan Islamic Party’s Online Propaganda Strategy
February 20, 2025This article aims to map the online propaganda presence and activities of the Turkestan Islamic Party’s media arm—Islam Awazi (“Voice of Islam”). It also discusses its capabilities in terms of producing new releases and attracting online audiences. In order to reach these objectives, this study exploited a methodology which is a combination of open source ...
Reclaim the Beach: How Offline Events Shape Online Interactions and Networks Amongst Those Who Support and Oppose Right-Wing Protest
February 20, 2025In this paper we examine how offline protests attended by members of the Australian far-right shape online interactions. Tweets about the 2019 St Kilda beach rally were collected. Users were manually classified as supporters (n = 104) or opponents of the rally (n = 872). Network analysis demonstrated that interactions between the two groups increased at the time of the ...
Exposure to Extremist Content and Public Sympathy for ISIS
February 20, 2025This study examines how individuals’ exposure to ISIS-related propaganda affects public sympathy for ISIS. We examine the extent that each type of communication channel (e.g. online media, traditional offline media, and in-person interactions) affects an individual’s perceptions of ISIS. We use a nationally representative sample (N = 1,609) from Turkey, which has played an important role during ...
How Jihadi Salafists Sometimes Breach, But Mostly Circumvent, Facebook’s Community Standards in Crisis, Identity and Solution Frames
February 20, 2025We analyzed posts written by Facebook profiles who advocate violent jihad without supporting any terrorist group. They share extremist content in the middle of regular posts, thanks to which they are likely to reach a large audience. We identified to what extent their ingroup-outgroup opposition is constructed in crisis, identity, and solution frames and how ...
Exploring the Relationship between Opportunity and Self-Control in Youth Exposure to and Sharing of Online Hate Content
February 20, 2025The rise of the Internet has dramatically increased the degree to which youth may be exposed to online hate content, and simplified the process of sharing this content with others. Viewing messages that contain hate speech or language vilifying others can increase an individual’s risk of radicalization to extremist views and the acceptance of violent ...
Social Network Analysis of German Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq
February 20, 2025Why do Westerners become foreign fighters in civil conflicts? We explore this question through original data collection on German foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, and test three sets of hypotheses that revolve around socioeconomic integration, online radicalization, and social network mobilization. We conduct link analysis to map the network of German foreign fighters prior ...
Psychiatry of Radicalization and Terrorism in the Lone Wolf, Children, and Women: An E-ethnographic Approach for Analysis
February 20, 2025Radicalization is a global event affecting different countries and present in different historical contexts. Psychiatrists can help in the analysis of radicalization in individuals who operate autonomously from more radicalized groups. These lone actors or lone wolves are more difficult to spot as there is no unique identification because they operate as self-determined women or ...