Social Media in Mali and its Relation to Violent Extremism: A Youth Perspective
September 18, 2023
The influence of social media on the spread of violent extremist narratives and online radicalisation processes has recently become a focal point for research in the fields of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism; however, most of the studies thus far have focused on Western countries and have often been aimed at analysing phenomena such as ...
Social Media in Africa: A double-edged sword for security and development
September 18, 2023
There is an on-going debate over the role of online activities in the radicalisation process. However, much of this debate has focused on Western countries, particularly in relation to ISIL’s online influence of homegrown terrorism and of foreign fighter travel to Iraq and Syria. Less is known about patterns of online radicalisation in Africa and ...
OK Google, Show Me Extremism: Analysis of YouTube’s Extremist Video Takedown Policy and Counter-Narrative Program
September 18, 2023
ISIS and other extremist groups, as well as their online supporters, have continued to exploit and misuse Google’s platforms to disseminate propaganda material, despite the company having repeatedly announced increased measures to combat online extremism.1 On July 21, 2017, Google announced the launch of one such measure––its Redirect Method Pilot Program. The program is intended ...
Government Responses to Malicious Use of Social Media
September 18, 2023
Since 2016, at least 43 countries around the globe have proposed or implemented regulations specifically designed to tackle different aspects of influence campaigns, including both real and perceived threats of fake news, social media abuse, and election interference. Some governments are in the early stages of designing regulatory measures specifically for digital contexts so they ...
Measuring the Impact of ISIS Social Media Strategy
September 18, 2023
Terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have exploited social media such as Twitter to spread their propaganda and to recruit new members. In this work we study the extent to which ISIS is able to spread their message beyond their immediate supporters. Are they operating in their own sphere with ...
Understanding the Impact of Terrorist Event Reporting on Countering Violent Extremism: From A Practitioner’s Perspective
September 18, 2023
This report presents the key findings from the London Roundtable on “Understanding the Impact of Terrorist Event Reporting on Countering Violent Extremism”. The event was held at the Australian High Commission in London on 30-31 January 2018. The roundtable brought together media practitioners, CVE and PVE front line practitioners, policy-makers and academics drawn from Australia, ...
Empowerment or Subjugation: An analysis of ISIL’s gendered messaging
September 18, 2023
In recent years, there has been greater recognition of the interplay of issues of gender equality and violent extremism (VE), and of peace and security more broadly. In December 2013, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2129 in which it affirmed ‘the intention to increase its attention to women, peace and security issues in ...
Loving Hate, Anti-Muslim Extremism, Radical Islamism, and the Spiral of Polarization
September 18, 2023
This report focuses on the interactional dynamics between anti-Muslim extremists and radical Islamists in Germany and beyond. It reveals ideological underpinnings, approaches to mobilization and communication patterns, which all prove to be analogous on both sides, and it places emphasis on the reciprocity of hate that may serve to intensify processes of individual and group ...
Indonesia and the Tech Giants vs ISIS Supporters: Combating Violent Extremism Online
September 18, 2023
The Indonesian government is cooperating more effectively now with private sector technology giants such as Google and Facebook to remove extremist content from social media platforms. Even as the hiccups in their relationship are being worked out, the extremists seem to be finding low-tech ways around blockages. The 8-9 May 2018 riot of terrorist suspects ...
The Eglyph Web Crawler: ISIS Content on YouTube
September 18, 2023
From March 8 to June 8, 2018, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) conducted a study to better understand how ISIS content is being uploaded to YouTube, how long it is staying online, and how many views these videos receive. To accomplish this, CEP conducted a limited search for a small set of just 229 previously-identified ...