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Freedom of Speech, the War on Terror, and What’s YouTube Got to Do with It: American Censorship during Times of Military Conflict

An analysis of Harakat al-Shabab’s multimedia releases and the rapid evolution in their production quality and design over a period of two to three years. Sound quality, animation, syncing sound with visuals, and narrative structures have all improved from the group’s multimedia releases from 2007 and 2008 when its videos were relatively simple, often just individuals sitting in front of a video camera, possibly just a camcorder, and grainy battle footage depicting fierce firefights between Harakat al-Shabab and the interim Somali government and its chief military backers, the African Union expeditionary force stationed inside the country.

This paper combines qualitative and quantitative content analysis to map and analyze the “Incel” worldview shared by members of a misogynistic online community ideologically linked to several recent acts of politically motivated violence, including Alek Minassian’s van attack in Toronto (2018) and Elliot Rodger’s school shooting in Isla Vista (2014). Specifically, the paper analyses how support and motivation for violence results from the particular structure this worldview presents in terms of social categories and causal narratives.

Radical milieus have been described as specific social environ¬ments whose culture, narratives, and symbols shape both individuals and groups, and the social networks and relationships out of which those individuals and groups develop and emerge. Researcher Peter Waldmann and his co-authors attribute distinct and independent qualities to these environments, portraying them as social entities in their own right, that is, a collective of people sharing certain perspectives and a unitary identity: a “subculture” or a “community.” This does not mean that conflict is absent between any given radical milieu and the violent extremist or terrorist group(s) that emerges from within it. Milieus have their own interests that lead them not just to interact with, but oftentimes to criticise and sometimes even confront their violent offshoots. Perhaps most importantly, Waldmann’s conception of radical milieus appears not merely to have social relationships as a core characteristic, but necessitates, implicitly or explicitly, face-to-face interaction amongst the members of any given milieu.

This article aims for revisiting the terrorism studies from different perspective. The terror attacks itself cannot be hundred percent zero but it just fluctuated trend. More specifically, terrorism always adaptive in following trends. While terror attacks still to target innocent civilians, the perpetrators could be closest relatives and neighbors. The way terror attack to reach out that group of people basically shows the silent role of returning foreign fighters (RFF)/returnees nurturing dan breeding terror ideologies. By using critical literature review especially historical narrative analysis, this study wants to examine the current terror trend that utilizes social media. It can spread terror narration and also affecting people to join. The way to analyze data is making clear connection from each literature. The findings of this study are: the RFF is adept at social media in nurturing terror ideologies and then making their home country and new terrorist cells to be breeding grounds.

This article begins by outlining four post-WWII strategies of right-wing revolutionary resistance: vanguardism; the cell system; leaderless resistance; and metapolitics. Next, the article argues that metapolitics became a preferred strategy for many right-wing revolutionaries during the 2000s and early 2010s, and proposes three conditions that may help explain this metapolitical turn: limited opportunities for armed resistance; a subcultural style shift; and new opportunities for promoting alternative worldviews online. Finally, the article theorizes about the types of threats that may emerge in the wake of this metapolitical turn, and speculates about the likelihood of a new and more violent turn in the near future.