far-right extremism
Despite short-term increases in arrests, counter-extremism powers need to do more to tackle the far-right
July 9, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
The European Far Right and Islamist Extremism on Twitter: From Radicalisation to Political Participation
September 18, 2023This article explores the results of a study on media participation on Twitter in 2018/2019 perceived as contributing to far right and Islamist radical ideologies, in 7 European countries. By combining online ethnography and big data approaches, we see that online far right extremism in Europe is active and ranks are growing, while Islamist extremism ...
Telegram as a Buttress: How far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists are expanding their infrastructures via Telegram
September 18, 2023The ISD Germany study on the extreme right-wing use of Telegram serves as a complementary text to the “Escape routes” report. In it, the research team examined links to other platforms, which were shared on the controversial messenger service and were disseminated in the channels of right-wing extremists, right-wing radicals and conspiracy ideologues in the ...
Of Humans, Machines, and Extremism: The Role of Platforms in Facilitating Undemocratic Cognition
September 18, 2023The events surrounding the 2020 U.S. election and the January 6 insurrection have challenged scholarly understanding of concepts like collective action, radicalization, and mobilization. In this article, we argue that online far-right radicalization is better understood as a form of distributed cognition, in which the groups’ online environment incentivizes certain patterns of behavior over others. ...
The ‘tarrant effect’: what impact did far-right attacks have on the 8chan forum?
September 18, 2023This paper analyses the impact of a series of mass shootings committed in 2018–2019 by right-wing extremists on 8chan/pol, a prominent far-right online forum. Using computational methods, it offers a detailed examination of how attacks trigger shifts in both forum activity and content. We find that while each shooting is discussed by forum participants, their ...
More Grist to the Mill? Reciprocal Radicalisation and Reactions to Terrorism in the Far-Right Digital Milieu
September 18, 2023Reciprocal radicalisation is the theory that extremist organisations are connected and feed on one another’s rhetoric and actions to justify violent escalation. Recent empirical work has suggested that reciprocal radicalisation is a good deal more subtle than is often assumed, and is nuanced by organisational, social and political context. This study seeks to apply the ...
Examining the Online Expression of Ideology among Far-Right Extremist Forum Users
September 18, 2023Over the last decade, there has been an increased focus among researchers on the role of the Internet among actors and groups across the political and ideological spectrum. There has been particular emphasis on the ways that far-right extremists utilize forums and social media to express ideological beliefs through sites affiliated with real-world extremist groups ...