Avoid the Pitfalls of Counter-Narratives
September 18, 2023
Counter-narratives and campaigns promoting normality, are often highlighted as universal means against online propaganda from militant movements. However, such campaigns are driven by a number of unfortunate assumptions and are difficult to apply in practice. ...
Measuring Online Affects in a White Supremacy Forum
September 18, 2023
Since the inception of the World Wide Web, security agencies, researchers, and analysts have focused much of their attention on the sentiment found on hate-inspired web-forums. Here, one of their goals has been to detect and measure users’ affects that are expressed in the forums as well as identify how users’ affects change over time. ...
Identifying individuals at risk of being radicalised via the internet
September 18, 2023
In an effort to better understand the risk of individuals being radicalised via the internet, this paper re-examines the phenomenon of online radicalisation by focusing on four considerations of interest: individual, online environment, interactions between individual and the online environment, and protective elements. A key premise of the discussion presented is that the different theoretical ...
Women and Violent Radicalization
September 18, 2023
As myths, stereotypes and media representations circulate about the several hundred Western women who have gone to Syria and joined the jihadists, it seems to us essential to try to understand the motives and explanatory factors behind the radicalization of these girls and women. What mechanisms and processes lead them to become radicalized and to ...
“On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog”: The Online Risk Assessment of Violent Extremists
September 18, 2023
Online behaviour can provide a unique window from which we can glean intent. From an intelligence standpoint it provides an important source of open-source information. However, making inference of intent from online activity is inherently difficult. Yet elsewhere progress is being made in incorporating information online into decisions regarding risk and offender prioritisation. This chapter ...
Digital Citizens: Countering Extremism Online
September 18, 2023
The last half century has witnessed a burgeoning information revolution that has transformed our societies beyond recognition. The development of sophisticated computing, the technological reorientation of vast segments of the global workforce, the invention of the internet and most recently the proliferation of social media technology has radically changed the ways we work, live, develop ...
Coercive Radicalization: Charismatic Authority and the Internal Strategies of ISIS and the Lord’s Resistance Army
September 18, 2023
A framework for understanding Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)’s apocalyptic theology as an internal strategy to “coercively radicalize” its captive subjects is presented, by comparison to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which shares key stages of captive indoctrination with ISIS. A violent experience of “entry,” religious rules learned in an “assimilation” process, and ...
Counter-Speech Un’Indagine Sui Contenuti Che Contrastano L’estremismo Online
September 18, 2023
Circa 1,5 miliardi di persone utilizzano Facebook su scala globale. Sebbene la maggioranza lo usi a scopi positivi, ce ne sono alcune che usano questa piattaforma in modo negativo. Partendo da questo presupposto, Facebook ha creato delle politiche, ossia gli Standard della Comunità, che elencano quale tipo di contenuto possa essere condiviso, e quale no. ...
Identifying Individuals at Risk of Being Radicalised Via the Internet
September 18, 2023
In an effort to better understand the risk of individuals being radicalised via the internet, this paper re-examines the phenomenon of online radicalisation by focusing on four considerations of interest: individual, online environment, interactions between individual and the online environment, and protective elements. A key premise of the discussion presented is that the different theoretical ...
“Talk About Terror in Our Back Gardens”: an Analysis of Online Comments about British Foreign Fighters in Syria
September 18, 2023
The phenomenon of foreign fighters has become a central issue to the ongoing conflict in Syria. This article explores how members of the public answer the question ‘Why do British citizens join the conflict in Syria’ on social media sites and in response to online news articles. Building upon research on everyday narratives of security ...