jihad
Jihacktivism: the Islamic State’s model of digital resistance
December 5, 2024This study explores the main building blocks of participatory activism utilised by sympathisers of the Islamic State within their online media networks. The organisation has named this militant practice “media jihad” or militancy (munasara), which is built on the cultural patterns of traditional ground-based jihad. The practice involves transferring cultural values and war manoeuvres into ...
Dark web jihad: exploring the militant Islamist information ecosystem on The Onion Router
August 29, 2024This paper maps communication channels exploited by the Salafi-jihadist violent extremist organisations (VEOs) and their followers between March 2020 and June 2022 on The Onion Router (TOR). It argues that the true scale of digital jihadist presence on TOR has remained insignificant for years. Militant Islamists have mostly used .onion domains as backup propaganda dissemination ...
In Mapping Digital Jihad: Understanding the Structure and Evolution of al-Qaeda’s Information Ecosystem on the Surface Web
August 29, 2024This article, which combines social network analysis and open-source intelligence, discusses the functions, structure, and evolution of al-Qaeda’s (AQ) information ecosystem on the surface web in the second half of 2023. It argues that despite preferring Rocket Chat as a primary communication channel, this terrorist organisation developed an extensive and robust propaganda distribution network detectable ...
How the Internet has Enabled Pakistani Militants to Explore New Avenues for Foreign Jihad
August 21, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
ISIS and the Militant Jihad on Instagram, Part I: Identifying Supporters
August 16, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
ISIS and the Militant Jihad on Instagram, Part II: Terrorist Propagandizing and Recruitment Strategies
August 16, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
Some Reflections on Locating Online Viewers of Jihadist Content in Policy Exchange’s ‘The New Netwar’
July 11, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
The Role of the Internet in the Jihadist Mobilisation of Women in Spain
July 11, 2024VOX-Pol Blog post. ...
Why Do Online Countering Violent Extremism Strategies Not Work? The Case of Digital Jihad
September 18, 2023This article discusses the reasons why content moderation and control in cyberspace, being a primary means of online countering violent extremism (CVE), does not work as intended. It makes four main arguments. Firstly, despite years of efforts from CVE stakeholders, the propaganda of militant Islamist VEOs is still easily accessible on the Internet. This study ...