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The United Kingdom (UK) has been at the vanguard of online censorship in democracies from the beginning of the modern internet. Since the mid-1990s the government has developed distinctive patterns of regulation – targeting intermediaries, using the bully pulpit to promote ‘voluntary’ self-regulation, and promoting automated censorship tools such as web blocking – which have been influential internationally but raise significant issues of legitimacy, transparency and accountability. This chapter examines this UK experience in light of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and EU law, arguing that in key regards current censorship practices fail to meet European standards.

The chapter builds on the existing literature in two main ways. First, it assesses emerging censorship practices in the area of terrorist material and extreme pornography. Second, it considers how recent EU legislation and ECtHR case law might constrain the freedom of the UK government and force a move towards different models of censorship.

The chapter starts by outlining the regulatory context. It then takes three case studies – Child Abuse Material (CAM), terrorist material, and pornography/extreme pornography under the Digital Economy Act 2017 – and traces how censorship has evolved from one context to the next. These systems are then evaluated against the standards set by European law and in particular Articles 6 and 10 ECHR, the Open Internet Regulation, and the Directives on Sexual Abuse of Children and on Combating Terrorism.

The ways in which the Internet can facilitate the expression and spread of racist views and ideologies have been the subject of a growing body of research across disciplines. To date, however, there has been no systematic reviews of this research. To synthesise current knowledge on the topic and identify directions for future research, we systematically review a decade of research on cyber-racism as perpetrated by groups and individuals (i.e., according to the source of cyber-racism). Overall, the cyber-racism research reviewed shows that racist groups and individuals use different communication channels, are driven by different goals, adopt different strategies, and the effects of their communication are distinctive. Despite these differences, both groups and individuals share a high level of skill and sophistication when expressing cyber-racism. Most of the studies reviewed relied on qualitative analyses of online textual data. Our review suggests there is a need for researchers to employ a broader array of methods, devote more attention to targets’ perspectives, and extend their focus by exploring issues such as the roles of Internet in mobilising isolated racist individuals and in enabling ideological clustering of supporters of racist ideologies.

This report analyzes the strength of the Islamic State’s (IS) network on Facebook using online network measurement tools and uncovers the myriad of ways in which IS operates on Facebook. To do so, we mapped the accounts and connections between 1,000 IS-supporting Facebook profiles with links to 96 countries on every continent except Antarctica using the open-source network analysis and visualization software, Gephi. It should be noted, however, that hundreds of additional pro-IS profiles were excluded from the dataset. This is because while we were able to identify the IS supporting Facebook accounts, there was no information on those users’ locations. Therefore, this data represents only a portion of IS’s support network on the platform. Our analysis of online IS communities globally, regionally, and nationally suggests that IS’s online networks, in particular on Facebook, are growing and can be utilized to plan and direct terror attacks as well as mobilize foreign fighters for multiple areas of insurgency. Secondly, IS’s presence on Facebook is pervasive and professionalized, contrary to the tech company’s rhetoric and efforts to convince the public, policymakers, and corporate advertisers from believing otherwise. Our findings illustrate that IS has developed a structured and deliberate strategy of
using Facebook to radicalize, recruit, support, and terrorize individuals around the world. According to our observations, it appears that IS utilizes a limited number of central players who work to magnify the group’s presence on the platform, and also works to strengthen its networks so that no one individual IS Facebook account (node) serves as an irreplaceable connection (edge) to other pro-IS accounts located elsewhere.

Until his death in a U.S. drone strike in August 2015, Junaid Hussain was the Islamic State’s most prolific Englishlanguage social media propagandist, working to incite and guide sympathizers in the United Kingdom, United States, and beyond to launch terrorist attacks. Before joining the
jihad in Syria, Hussain was part of a hacking collective in the United Kingdom, focusing much of his attention on perceived injustices against Muslims. In many respects, he was well integrated into British society with his family home in a leafy suburb of Birmingham. A spell in prison contributed to his radicalization and his decision to move to Syria, where he married fellow extremist Sally Jones.

Between 2006 and 2012, two men working on opposite
sides of the struggle between global jihadis and the United
States faced of in New York City. One was the founder of
Revolution Muslim, a group which proselytized—online
and on New York streets—on behalf of al-Qa`ida. The
other led eforts to track the terrorist threat facing the
city. Here, they tell the inside story of the rise of Revolution
Muslim and how the NYPD, by using undercover ofcers
and other methods, put the most dangerous homegrown
jihadi support group to emerge on U.S. soil since 9/11
out of business. As the Islamic State adjusts to its loss of
territory, this case study provides lessons for current and
future counterterrorism investigations.

This paper is written for police wanting an overview of their online PCVE options, and is based on the RAN POL meeting on ‘The role of police online’ that took place on 1-2 March in Oslo.