YouTube
Briefing Note ‘El Rubio’ Lives: The Challenge Of Arabic Language Extremist Content On Social Media Platforms
September 18, 2023This briefing outlines research uncovering thousands of users viewing extremist content in Arabic language across mainstream social platforms including Facebook and YouTube. The findings emerged as world leaders, policymakers, and technology companies gathered in Jordan earlier this month to discuss counter-terrorism and extremism as part of the Aqaba Process and the convening of the Global ...
Caught In The Net: The Impact Of “Extremist” Speech Regulations On Human Rights Content
September 18, 2023Social media companies have long struggled with what to do about extremist content on their platforms. While most companies include provisions about “extremist” content in their community standards, until recently, such content was often vaguely defined, providing policymakers and content moderators a wide berth in determining what to remove, and what to allow. Unfortunately, companies ...
Iraqi Insurgents’ Use Of Youtube As A Strategic Communication Tool: An Exploratory Content Analysis
September 18, 2023This dissertation study is a baseline investigation into Iraqi insurgents’ use of YouTube as a strategic communication tool. The study utilized a content analysis of videos from October 28, 2008, to December 1, 2008, for the search term ‘Iraqi resistance’ on YouTube that met stated criteria. Overall framing devices and themes found in the collection ...
Terrorists And Cyberspace: The Digital Battleground
September 18, 2023This thesis asks why and how terrorist organizations use the Internet to achieve three strategic goals: 1) the dissemination of propaganda, 2) recruitment and 3) fundraising. It is immediately apparent that the Internet offers a number of advantages, including low cost, global reach, and anonymity. Nonetheless, terrorist organizations vary in their exploitation of these advantages ...
A Dialectical Approach To Online Propaganda: Australia’s United Patriots Front Right Wing Politics And Islamic State
September 18, 2023This article examines how the United Patriots Front (UPF), an Australian far-right organization, has communicated its ideology with reference to right-wing politics in Australia, Western Europe, and the United States, and through allusions to Islamic State. The investigation uses critical discourse and documentary analysis and a framework derived from the theory of Pierre Bourdieu to ...
Beyond The “Big Three”: Alternative Platforms For Online Hate Speech
September 18, 2023In recent years, most international studies on hate speech online have focused on the three platforms traditionally considered the most influential: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. However, their predominance as the biggest international social networks is no longer uncontested. Other networks are on the rise and young users especially lose interest in the ‘old’ platforms. In ...
The homogeneity of right-wing populist and radical content in YouTube recommendations
September 18, 2023The use of social media to disseminate extreme political content on the web, especially right-wing populist propaganda, is no longer a rarity in today’s life. Recommendation systems of social platforms, which provide personalized filtering of content, can contribute to users forming homogeneous cocoons around themselves. This study investigates YouTube’s recommendations system based on 1,663 German ...
Online Radicalization Of White Women To Organized White Supremacy
September 18, 2023Since its early mainstream adoption in the 1990s, the Internet has been leveraged by white supremacist groups to recruit and radicalize individuals. Twenty years later, social media platforms, like YouTube, reddit, and Twitter, continue to further this practice. The attention of researchers has been primarily centered on white supremacist men, and this focus on white ...
What is BitChute? Characterizing the “Free Speech” Alternative to YouTube
September 18, 2023In this paper, we characterize the content and discourse on BitChute, a social video-hosting platform. Launched in 2017 as an alternative to YouTube, BitChute joins an ecosystem of alternative, low content moderation platforms, including Gab, Voat, Minds, and 4chan. Uniquely, BitChute is the first of these alternative platforms to focus on video content and is ...
The Virus of Hate: Far-Right Terrorism in Cyberspace
September 18, 2023Founded in 1996, the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) is one of the leading academic institutes for counter-terrorism in the world, facilitating international cooperation in the global struggle against terrorism. ICT is an independent think tank providing expertise in terrorism, counter-terrorism, homeland security, threat vulnerability and risk assessment, intelligence analysis and national security and defense ...