Hate Speech
Hate Crime: Abuse, Hate and Extremism Online
September 18, 2023We announced this inquiry into hate crime and its violent consequences in early July 2016. Our decision to undertake the inquiry followed the murder of Jo Cox MP in June in the lead-up to the EU referendum. There was also evidence of an increase in the number of attacks on people from ethnic minorities and ...
Identity, Activism and Hatred: Hate Speech against Migrants on Facebook in the Czech Republic in 2015
September 18, 2023The 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 ...
“You Need to Be Sorted Out With a Knife”: The Attempted Online Silencing of Women and People of Muslim Faith Within Academia
September 18, 2023Academics are increasingly expected to use social media to disseminate their work and knowledge to public audiences. Although this has various advantages, particularly for alternative forms of dissemination, the web can also be an unsafe space for typically oppressed or subordinated groups. This article presents two auto-ethnographic accounts of the abuse and hate academics researching ...
Extremist Content and the ICT Sector: A Global Network Initiative Policy Brief
September 18, 2023The role of information and communication technology (ICT) companies in responding to alleged terrorist or extremist content has become one of the most challenging issues for freedom of expression and privacy online. In July 2015, GNI launched a policy dialogue to explore key questions and considerations concerning government efforts to restrict online content with the ...
Autocommunicative Meaning-Making in Online Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right
September 18, 2023This article analyses the online communication of the Estonian extreme right that appears to be characterized by an echo-chamber effect as well as enclosed and hermetic meaning-making. The discussion mainly relies on the theoretical frameworks offered by semiotics of culture. One of the aims of the article is to widen the scope of understanding of ...
Counter-Speech on Facebook
September 18, 2023Facebook serves more than 1.5 billion people globally. Although the majority of people use the site for positive purposes, there are some who use the platform in negative ways. With that in mind, Facebook has created a set of policies – its Community Standards – detailing what type of content people can and cannot post. ...
A Longitudinal Measurement Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web
September 18, 2023Although it has been a part of the dark underbelly of the Internet since its inception, recent events have brought the discussion board site 4chan to the forefront of the world’s collective mind. In particular, /pol/, 4chan’s “Politically Incorrect” board has become a central figure in the outlandish 2016 Presidential election. Even though 4chan has ...
Skinhead Super Mario Brothers: An Examination of Racist and Violent Games on White Supremacist Web Sites
September 18, 2023This study uses qualitative interpretive textual analysis of video games found on hate and extremist Web sites to explore the proliferation of these games on the Internet and the extent they advocate violence and conflict or portray hate groups in a positive way to existing and potential members. In particular, this study examines the “enemies” ...
Anti-Semitic Targeting of Journalists During the 2016 Presidential Campaign
September 18, 2023Over the course of the 2016 Presidential campaign, an execrable trend has emerged: reporters who voiced even slightly negative opinions about presidential candidate Donald Trump have been targeted relentlessly on social media by the candidate’s self-styled supporters; reporters who are Jewish (or are perceived to be Jewish) have borne the brunt of these attacks. There ...
Cyberhate on Social Media in the aftermath of Woolwich: A Case Study in Computational Criminology and Big Data
September 18, 2023This paper presents the first criminological analysis of an online social reaction to a crime event of national significance, in particular the detection and propagation of cyberhate on social media following a terrorist attack. We take the Woolwich, London terrorist attack in 2013 as our event of interest and draw on Cohen’s process of warning, ...