Sub-Saharan African Terrorist Groups’ Use of the Internet
September 18, 2023
This article presents the results of a study which measured the web presence of terrorist groups active in Sub Saharan Africa. It also explores the relationship between web technology availability and adoption by terrorist groups and looks at how differentiating between web publishing technologies used by terrorist groups can further develop the study of terrorist ...
The State of Global Jihad Online: A Qualitative, Quantitative, and Cross-Lingual Analysis
September 18, 2023
It is only a matter of time before terrorists begin routinely using Twitter, Instagram, and other services in ongoing operations. We have already seen this in a limited manner from al-Shabaab, which tweets its #JihadDispatches on recent battles. But those delivery mechanisms are unlikely to replace the forums as the main environment for conversation and ...
VOX-Pol Discusses Media Strategies of Violent Radical Groups Online
September 18, 2023
At the end of January, VOX-Pol’s Dr Maura Conway (DCU) and Professor Ian Brown (OII) spoke to Belgian public service broadcaster VRT News on the subject of media strategies used by radical groups online. This a video of the news segment. ...
Criminogenic Qualities Of The Internet
September 18, 2023
ABSTRACT- This paper initially identifies a number of critical distinctions that might help our understanding of the relationship between Internet use and terrorism. It then develops the notion of complex global microstructures as a useful conceptual aid to understanding how people interact with the Internet in general, and to terrorism in particular. Parallels are identified ...
‘Don’t Talk to Me’: Effects of Ideologically Homogeneous Online Groups and Politically Dissimilar Offline Ties on Extremism
September 18, 2023
This study analyzes cross-sectional data obtained from respondents in neo-Nazi online discussion forums and textual data from postings to these forums. It assesses the impact of participation in radical and homogeneous online groups on opinion extremism and probes whether this impact depends on political dissimilarity of strong and weak offline ties. Specifically, does dissimilarity attenuate ...
The Hidden Face of Jihadist Internet Forum Management: The Case of Ansar Al Mujahideen
September 18, 2023
This article offers a descriptive analysis of the private interactions which took place on the jihadist Internet forum known as Ansar Al Mujahideen between 2008 and 2010. The analysis of the non-visible part of the forum contributes to a more robust underpinning of some current assumptions regarding the jihadist Internet infrastructure and its hierarchical dependence ...
Modified Frequency-Based Term Weighting Scheme for Accurate Dark Web Content Classification
September 18, 2023
Security informatics and intelligence computation plays a vital role in detecting and classifying terrorism contents in the web. Accurate web content classification using the computational intelligence and security informatics will increase the opportunities of the early detection of the potential terrorist activities. In this paper, we propose a modified frequency-based term weighting scheme for accurate ...
A Content Analysis of Persuasion Techniques Used on White Supremacist Websites
September 18, 2023
The Internet has made it possible for people to access just about any information they could possibly want. Conversely, it has given organizations a vehicle through which they can get their message out to a large audience. Hate groups have found the Internet particularly appealing, because they are able to get their uncensored message out ...
Technological Skills of White Supremacists in an Online Forum: A Qualitative Examination
September 18, 2023
Research surrounding radicalization to and use of violence among extremist and terror groups has expanded over the last decade. There are still fundamental questions that must be addressed, particularly regarding the role of the Internet in radicalisation and recruitment as well as general technological skill within extremist groups. Few studies have considered this issue, especially ...