Radicalisation
Policing ‘online radicalization’: the framing of Europol’s Internet Referral Unit
February 20, 2025This chapter examines Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) and its role in the privatized governance of online media within the broader context of transnational law enforcement and European counter-terrorism policy. Established in 2015, the EU IRU monitors online content and recommends takedowns to hosting platforms based on breaches of terms of service, not legal ...
Public Mental Health Approaches to Online Radicalisation: A Systematic Review of the Literature
January 23, 2025This systematic review seeks to position online radicalisation within whole system frameworks incorporating individual, family, community and wider structural influences, whilst reporting evidence of public mental health approaches for individuals engaging in radical online content. Methods: Authors searched Medline (via Ovid), PsycInfo (via Ebscohost) and Web of Science (Core Collection), with the use of Boolean ...
Women and the Spread of Global Extremism Narratives of ISIS
January 23, 2025The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a radicalized group that has the goal of building an Islamic caliphate globally. ISIS recruits its members globally and spreads the extremism narrative widely. ISIS recruits more men to fulfill their roles as fighters and martyrs, but the role of women is also needed in ISIS ...
Radicalisation through Gaming: The Role of Gendered Social Identity
January 23, 2025This project aims to understand, through a gender and intersectional lens, how socialisation processes coupled with exposure to harassment, hate-based discrimination and extreme content can potentially lower resilience to radicalisation in gaming. ...
ONLINE RADICALIZATION OF YOUTH: PREREQUISITES AND MECHANISMS
December 19, 2024The article examines online radicalization of youth on social networks. Based on a review of the existing literature on radicalization, I first defined its understanding. Having examined the existing approaches, I joined the opinion that radicalism leads to violence only in some cases. I distinguish between “cognitive” radicalization, or the formation of extreme beliefs, and ...
Exiting the Manosphere. A Gendered Analysis of Radicalization, Diversion and Deradicalization Narratives from r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill
December 5, 2024The growth of the online ‘manosphere’ has raised significant concerns regarding the movement’s highly misogynistic discourses and related lone offender attacks perpetrated by incels. This article employs a digital ethnography approach to examine r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill, two forums dedicated to assisting individuals leave the manosphere. Utilizing a gendered perspective, this study delves into narratives from ...
The Transnational Threat of Radicalization Through the Use of Online Gaming Platforms
December 5, 2024The current National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin released by the Department of Homeland Security places the United States in a heightened threat environment due to “threat actors” becoming mobilized by “personal grievances, reactions to current events, and adherence to violent extremist ideologies…” (Summary of the Terrorism Threat to the United States, 2022). Online threats, extremism, ...
Increasing knowledge about cognitive biases: An evaluation study of a radicalization prevention campaign targeted at European adolescents and young adults
December 5, 2024Confrontation with radical online content has been empirically linked to the facilitation of radicalization processes. Therefore, building a presence of information about potential prevention of radicalization through an online campaign may be particularly relevant to limit the activities and appeals of radical actors. In this study, we thus examine the effectiveness of campaign material focused ...
Misogynistic Pathways to Radicalisation: Recommended Measures for Platforms to Assess and Mitigate Online Gender-Based Violence
December 4, 2024This paper reviews online gender-based violence (OGBV) as existing within a continuum of (on- and offline) violence, emphasising the connections with different extremist ideologies, including the dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC). It aims to prioritise a gender perspective in responding to TVEC so that social media platforms can better intervene in and ...
Down the Rabbit Hole: Detecting Online Extremism, Radicalisation, and Politicised Hate Speech
December 4, 2024Social media is a modern person’s digital voice to project and engage with new ideas and mobilise communities—a power shared with extremists. Given the societal risks of unvetted content-moderating algorithms for Extremism, Radicalisation, and Hate speech (ERH) detection, responsible software engineering must understand the who, what, when, where, and why such models are necessary to protect user safety and free expression. Hence, ...