Germany
Germany’s Legal Crackdown on Social Media: Four Misconceptions Dispelled
August 22, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
Signposts – A background report on right-wing extremist online subcultures
September 18, 2023“Signposts” provides background information on the publications of the project “Countering Radicalisation in Right-Wing Extremist Online Subcultures” funded by the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ). In the first part of this report, a brief historical overview of right-wing extremist internet use in Germany is given. The report describes how, since the emergence of the internet, ...
Detours and Diversions Online Strategies for the Dissemination of Right-Wing Extremist Content
September 18, 2023Since the beginning of 2021, ISD Germany has been researching right-wing extremist actors on alternative platforms on the internet. Three reports were published as part of the German Federal Ministry for Justice (BMJ)-funded project “Countering radicalisation in right-wing extremist online subcultures”. The last report in 2021, “Detours and Diversions – Online Strategies for the Dissemination ...
Trans-Atlantic Journeys of Far-Right Narratives Through Online-Media Ecosystems
September 18, 2023This research briefing explores if and how far-right narratives from the United States (US), France and Germany gain traction in domestic mainstream media, or move across borders between the US on the one hand, and France and Germany on the other. It tests what will be referred to as the mainstreaming hypothesis (far-right ideas start ...
The Online Regulation Series | Germany
September 18, 2023Germany has an extensive framework for regulating online content, particularly with regards to hate speech and violent extremist and terrorist material. Experts also note that Germany’s regulatory framework has to some extent helped set the standard for the European, and possibly global, regulatory landscape. ...
The German Far-right on YouTube: An Analysis of User Overlap and User Comments
September 18, 2023This study focuses on the formation of far-right online communities on YouTube and whether the rise of three new actors (Pegida, Identitarian movement, AfD) can also be observed with user behavior on YouTube. We map the network of far-right, conspiracy and alternative media channels in the German-language YouTube sphere, how this network evolves over time ...
Uniting the far right: how the far-right extremist, New Right, and populist frames overlap on Twitter – a German case study
September 18, 2023Recent elections in Europe have demonstrated a steady rise in the success of right-wing populist parties. While advancing an anti-immigration agenda, these parties have been adamant to distance themselves from ‘right-wing extremism’. This article analyses a sample of tweets collected from the Twitter accounts of the German AfD, Identitarian Movement and the Autonomous Nationalists by ...
The Hanau Terrorist Attack: How Race Hate and Conspiracy Theories Are Fueling Global Far-Right Violence
September 18, 2023The number of lone-actor attacks committed by far-right extremists have surged in recent years, most notably in the West where mass-casualty attacks have occurred, including the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The fatal attack in February 2020 in Hanau, Germany, revealed the perpetrator’s influences to be a combination of traditional far-right, ...