Australia
Examining extremist language use amongst Australian members of an online far-right forum
November 27, 2024Far-right extremists use the internet to recruit and connect with other radicalised individuals and spread their propaganda online, with them being prolific users of online forums and social media. Such online data can be analysed using linguistic tools to identify markers of radicalisation in social media, forum posts, and other extremist texts. Few studies have ...
Nazis at the salad bar: The National Workers’ Alliance and mixed, unclear, and unstable ideology
October 9, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
Organize and Fight (Online): Assessing the Discursive Extremism of Anti-Lockdown Groups in Australia
October 2, 2024Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-lockdown movements sparked concerns about online extremism escalating into real-world violence. This study takes the Australian anti-lockdown movement to explore extremist discourse in Australia, as it contained several, overlapping and interacting extremisms. This study explores the labelling of these protests as extreme and examines the interplay between individuals, ...
Far-Right ‘Reactions’: a comparison of Australian and Canadian far-right extremist groups on Facebook
September 18, 2023Little is known about which features of Facebook’s interface appeal to users of far-right extremist groups, how such features may influence a user’s interpretation of far-right extremist themes and narratives, and how this is being experienced across various nations. This paper looks at why certain ‘Reactions’ appealed to users in Australian and Canadian far-right groups ...
Fascist cross-pollination of Australian conspiracist Telegram channels
September 18, 2023The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about trauma and uncertainty for vast swathes of the world population, including in Australia. One effect of this has been the growth of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and general conspiracism. This article explores efforts by fascists and neo-Nazis to exploit the rise in conspiratorial thinking for recruitment and dissemination of their ...
Interim report: Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism
September 18, 2023Over the last several years, there has been an alarming increase in antisemitic incidents across the globe. Today, the apparent majority originate online. As social media posts do not stop at international borders, members of the national legislatures of Australia, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States have come together across party lines ...
Mapping right-wing extremism in Victoria: Applying a gender lens to develop prevention and deradicalisation approaches
September 18, 2023This project aims to map right-wing extremism in Victoria through the lens of gender. It begins from the premise that there is an underexplored connection between antifeminist sentiment and far-right extremist sentiment. It does this by focusing on select Victorian-based online groups that have an anti-feminist and far-right profile. The project also works with stakeholders ...
The Interplay Between Australia’s Political Fringes on the Right and Left: Online Messaging on Facebook
September 18, 2023This research briefing outlines findings from an analysis of the far-right and far-left Facebook ecosystem in Australia in the first seven months of 2020. It analyses how the far-right and far-left discuss each other on Facebook and how narratives about the other side of the political spectrum shape the online activity of these groups. It ...