Terrorist Use of Virtual Currencies
September 18, 2023
This paper explores the risk that virtual currencies (VCs) may become involved in the financing of terrorism at a significant scale. VCs and asso- ciated technologies hold great promise for low cost, high speed, verified transactions that can unite coun- terparties around the world. For this reason they could appear appealing to terrorist groups (as ...
Hate Messages and Violent Extremism in Digital Environments
September 18, 2023
This report presents research carried out within the project (Ku2016/01373/D – Uppdrag till Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut (FOI) att göra kartläggningar och analyser av våldsbejakande extremistisk propaganda) that has been assigned to the Swedish defence research agency by the Swedish Government. The project will continue until March 2019. The report briefly describes the channels of communication that ...
Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online
September 18, 2023
■ Internet subcultures take advantage of the current media ecosystem to manipulate news frames, set agendas, and propagate ideas. ■ Far-right groups have developed techniques of “attention hacking” to increase the visibility of their ideas through the strategic use of social media, memes, and bots—as well as by targeting journalists, bloggers, and influencers to help ...
The Digital Caliphate. A Study of Propaganda from the Islamic State
September 18, 2023
This report presents research carried out within the project (Ku2016/01373/D – Uppdrag till Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut (FOI) att göra kartläggningar och analyser av våldsbejakande extremistisk propaganda) that has been assigned to the Swedish defence research agency by the Swedish Government. The project will continue until March 2019. The purpose of this report is to highlight various ...
Paradigmatic Shifts in Jihadism in Cyberspace: The Emerging Role of Unaffiliated Sympathizers in Islamic State’s Social Media Strategy
September 18, 2023
This paper provides an overview of the evolution of the concept of jihadism as it presently exists in cyberspace. From its roots during the Chechen conflict to the current use of social media by the Islamic State (IS), this paper identifies and examines three highly significant paradigm shifts: (1) the emergence of rudimentary Web 2.0 ...
Starting Points For Combating Hate Speech Online
September 18, 2023
Young People Combating Hate Speech Online is a project of the Council of Europe’s youth sector running between 2012 and 2015. The project aims to combat racism and discrimination in their online expression of hate speech by equipping young people and youth organisations with the competences necessary to recognize and act against such human rights ...
Hate Crime: Abuse, Hate and Extremism Online
September 18, 2023
We announced this inquiry into hate crime and its violent consequences in early July 2016. Our decision to undertake the inquiry followed the murder of Jo Cox MP in June in the lead-up to the EU referendum. There was also evidence of an increase in the number of attacks on people from ethnic minorities and ...
Shooting the Messenger: Do Not Blame the Internet for Terrorism
September 18, 2023
The internet clearly matters to terrorists, but online content by itself rarely causes people to carry out terrorist attacks. Responses should therefore not be limited to the mass removal of terrorist content from online platforms. ...
Mapping Extremist Communities: A Social Network Analysis Approach
September 18, 2023
In the domain of computer science, the last years have witnessed the improvement of social network analysis at scale. One of the most challenging aspects of social network analysis is community detection; analysts use a variety of tools to visualise the spontaneous group structure emerging from interactions and friendship relations in multi-million-user networks. This visualisation, ...
The Key Lessons Learned from the Use of the Internet by Jihadist Groups
September 18, 2023
This work analyzes some of the key lessons learned from the use of the Internet by jihadist groups over the last twenty years: 1) Online activism can be a substitute for commitment to armed jihad. 3) Terrorists are “early adopters” of new technologies, to enjoy spaces of impunity. 4) The investigation of terrorist activities on ...