Radicalization on the Internet?
September 18, 2023
The spectre of a retrograde, puritanical and belligerent ideology may seem anachronistic in the twenty-first century. However, Jihadism (as opposed to the classical reified conception of Jihad) is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. The Internet, that most contemporary of media, is increasingly its medium of choice: Jihadist websites, forums and blogs flourish. Prominent Jihadist ideologues like ...
Regulating the ‘Dark Web’: How a Two-Fold Approach can Tackle Peer-to-Peer Radicalisation
September 18, 2023
The internet plays a contributory role in radicalisation, but is only one of a number of mechanisms currently deployed to win recruits to global jihad. Technical regulation of online content is difficult and may be counter-productive, driving forums deeper underground or alienating users. Tim Stevens argues that adopting a social approach that educates and empowers ...
Ethical and Legal Issues Surrounding Academic Research into Online Radicalisation: a UK Experience
September 18, 2023
There is a growing body of evidence that terrorists/terrorist groups have increased their use of the Internet to include a move into online social network environments in their efforts to radicalise and potentially recruit and mobilise new members. Both the US and UK governments acknowledge that not enough is known about this phenomenon and there ...
Grooming for Terror: The Internet and Young People
September 18, 2023
The use of the Internet to spawn hate sites and recruit advocates for hate began as early as the mid-1980s in bulletin boards, and the first acknowledged hate site was Stormfront, in the early 1990s. Since then hundreds of hate sites and other websites advocating terror have been developed, some with stated aims of recruiting ...
Applying the Notion of Noise to Countering Online Terrorism
September 18, 2023
The growing presence of modern terrorism on the Internet is at the nexus of two key trends: the democratization of communications driven by user-generated content on the Internet; and the growing awareness of modern terrorists of the potential of the Internet for their purposes. How best can the terrorists’ use and abuse of the Internet ...
The Janus Face of New Media Propaganda: The Case of Patani Neojihadist YouTube Warfare and Its Islamophobic Effect on Cyber-Actors
September 18, 2023
Surfing on the Internet 2.0 revolution, Patani 2.0 has allowed Patani neojihadist militants to access new competitive spaces and create their own imagined online community by penetrating new realms of the Internet. This article discusses the use of new media militant propaganda by Patani militants and how it is Janus faced. It further examines how ...
An Exploratory, Dynamic Application of Social Network Analysis for Modelling the Development of Islamist Terror‐Cells in the West
September 18, 2023
The present paper represents an exploratory, dynamic and qualitative application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) for modelling the development of Islamist terror cells in the West. Two well‐known case studies are systematically re‐examined using this methodology as a supporting framework for interpreting the sequence of group development from a social psychological perspective. By drawing attention ...
Pathways to Violent Extremism in the Digital Era
September 18, 2023
The Internet is often singled out as the key means through which extremists and terrorists are radicalised. Yet, argue Charlie Edwards and Luke Gribbon, research thus far has fallen short of unearthing the actual mechanisms through which this radicalisation takes place. Using examples from a wider study, they explore different ways in which individuals have ...
Countering Online Youth Radicalisation
September 18, 2023
Dr Leah Farrall from the National Security College, ANU in conversation with Dr John Coyne, Head – Border Security Program – ASPI. ...
Who Views Online Extremism? Individual Attributes Leading to Exposure
September 18, 2023
Who is likely to view materials online maligning groups based on race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, political views, immigration status, or religion? We use an online survey (N = 1034) of youth and young adults recruited from a demographically balanced sample of Americans to address this question. By studying demographic characteristics and online habits ...