Spiders of the Caliphate: Mapping the Islamic State’s Global Support Network on Facebook
September 18, 2023
This report analyzes the strength of the Islamic State’s (IS) network on Facebook using online network measurement tools and uncovers the myriad of ways in which IS operates on Facebook. To do so, we mapped the accounts and connections between 1,000 IS-supporting Facebook profiles with links to 96 countries on every continent except Antarctica using ...
Fanning the Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime
September 18, 2023
This paper investigates the link between social media and hate crime using hand-collected data from Facebook and Twitter. We study the case of Germany, where the recently emerged right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has developed a major social media presence. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that right-wing anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook predicts violent ...
“A View from the CT Foxhole: An Interview with Brian Fishman, Counterterrorism Policy Manager, Facebook”
September 18, 2023
In our interview, Brian Fishman, Facebook’s Counterterrorism Policy Manager, provides a detailed description of how Facebook is using artificial intelligence and a dedicated team of counterterrorism specialists to remove terrorism content from its platform. Given the emergence of a new generation of leadership within al-Qa`ida, it is critical to understand the evolving threat from the ...
Cloaked Facebook Pages: Exploring Fake Islamist Propaganda in Social Media
September 18, 2023
This research analyses cloaked Facebook pages that are created to spread political propaganda by cloaking a user profile and imitating the identity of a political opponent in order to spark hateful and aggressive reactions. This inquiry is pursued through a multi-sited online ethnographic case study of Danish Facebook pages disguised as radical Islamist pages, which ...
Cyber-Extremism: Isis and the Power of Social Media
September 18, 2023
The current crises in Syria has led to a number of Britons travelling abroad to fight with groups such as Isis. Capitalising on this growth, Isis are now increasingly fighting an online cyber war, with the use of slick videos, online messages of hate and even an app that all aim to radicalise and create ...
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. ...
The State of the Art: A Literature Review of Social Media Intelligence Capabilities for Counter-Terrorism
September 18, 2023
This paper is a review of how information and insight can be drawn from open social media sources. It focuses on the specific research techniques that have emerged, the capabilities they provide, the possible insights they offer, and the ethical and legal questions they raise. The relevance and value of these techniques are considered for ...
Social Media Compliance Programs and the War Against Terrorism
September 18, 2023
Widespread Internet use by terrorists had made the prevention of terror attacks increasingly difficult. This Article argues that social media companies, like other corporate entities, should be legally required to institute compliance programs that ferret out and report terrorist activity at the earliest possible opportunity. To this end, the Article proposes text for new legislation ...
IS and the Jihadist Information Highway – Projecting Influence and Religious Identity via Telegram
September 18, 2023
Groups such as al-Qaida (AQ) have pursued spectacular attacks to garner media attention and popularize their cause. What is often not noted, however, is that for those who submit themselves to the religious thinking of al-Qaida – and nowadays the self-designated “Islamic State” (IS) – the militant struggle is intertwined with the duty to call ...
Identity, Activism and Hatred: Hate Speech against Migrants on Facebook in the Czech Republic in 2015
September 18, 2023
The increased influx of refugees and migrants to the EU in 2015 has been followed by a noticeable presence of online hate speech against migrants in many countries across Europe. The article presents the results of a study of hate speech proliferation on Facebook in the Czech Republic during the summer of 2015. Its goal ...