How Jihadi Salafists Sometimes Breach, But Mostly Circumvent, Facebook’s Community Standards in Crisis, Identity and Solution Frames
February 20, 2025
We analyzed posts written by Facebook profiles who advocate violent jihad without supporting any terrorist group. They share extremist content in the middle of regular posts, thanks to which they are likely to reach a large audience. We identified to what extent their ingroup-outgroup opposition is constructed in crisis, identity, and solution frames and how ...
How Civil Aiding and Abetting Liability for Terrorist Activities Applies to Social Media Companies—And How it Does Not
February 20, 2025
The 2023 Supreme Court case Twitter v. Taamneh found that defendant social media companies were not liable for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack overseas. The Court alluded to the existence of an alternative set of facts that might alter their analysis or produce a different outcome. This Comment explores those “other contexts” and seeks ...
A Data-driven Understanding of Left-Wing Extremists on Social Media
January 23, 2025
Social media’s role in the spread and evolution of extremism is a focus of intense study. Online extremists have been involved in the spread of online hate, mis/disinformation, and real-world violence. However, the overwhelming majority of existing work has focused on right-wing extremism. In this paper, we perform a first of its kind large-scale, data-driven ...
Digital Communication Strategy to Counteract the Use of Social Media as a Propaganda Tool for Terrorist Groups
January 23, 2025
Social media has become a critical tool for terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, leveraging these platforms to disseminate ideology, recruit members, and mobilize support. This study aims to identify the patterns of terrorist propaganda on social media and develop effective digital communication strategies to counteract these activities. The research employs a qualitative approach through ...
Exposure to and sharing of fringe or radical content online
January 23, 2025
Using a large, national survey of online Australians, we measured unintentional and intentional exposure to fringe or radical content and groups online. Two in five respondents (40.6%) reported being exposed to material they described as fringe, unorthodox or radical. One-quarter of these respondents (23.2%) accessed the content intentionally. One-third (29.9%) said the content they had ...
The Evolution of Terrorism in Digital Era: Cyberterrorism, Social Media, and Modern Extremism Chapter
December 19, 2024
This study explores the significant impact of the internet on terrorism and extremism by focusing on three key areas: cyberterrorism, social media usage, and attack planning. Cyberterrorism has emerged as a major threat, with incidents such as the WannaCry ransomware attack highlighting its potential to disrupt critical infrastructures. The study reveals that the low cost ...
Down the Rabbit Hole: Detecting Online Extremism, Radicalisation, and Politicised Hate Speech
December 4, 2024
Social 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, ...
Far-right social media communication in the light of technology affordances: a systematic literature review
December 3, 2024
Most analyses of far-right communication on social media focus on one specific platform, while findings are generalized. In this study, I argue that the far right’s use of social media depends on technology affordances – the linkage between platform design and usage – and, thus, might not always be generalizable. After discussing six affordances – ...
Deplatforming Norm-Violating Influencers on Social Media Reduces Overall Online Attention Toward Them
October 29, 2024
From politicians to podcast hosts, online platforms have systematically banned (“deplatformed”) influential users for breaking platform guidelines. Previous inquiries on the effectiveness of this intervention are inconclusive because 1) they consider only few deplatforming events; 2) they consider only overt engagement traces (e.g., likes and posts) but not passive engagement (e.g., views); 3) they do ...
Far-right social media communication in the light of technology affordances: a systematic literature review
October 24, 2024
Most analyses of far-right communication on social media focus on one specific platform, while findings are generalized. In this study, I argue that the far right’s use of social media depends on technology affordances – the linkage between platform design and usage – and, thus, might not always be generalizable. After discussing six affordances – ...