Online Library

“Signposts” provides background information on the publications of the project “Countering Radicalisation in Right-Wing Extremist Online Subcultures” funded by the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ).

In the first part of this report, a brief historical overview of right-wing extremist internet use in Germany is given. The report describes how, since the emergence of the internet, the extreme right in Germany has always found ways to utilise the latest technological and social developments, such as the emergence of Web 2.0, for their own purposes. The first part of the report also presents the state of research on the right-wing extremist online milieu and describes focal points of current research on right-wing extremism.

The second part of the report describes the conceptual preparatory work that preceded the analyses within the framework of the project. This includes, on the one hand, the development of a definition of right-wing extremism for the project. This is because a uniform definition of the term does not exist, but is necessary for concise and transparent research into the right-wing extremist online milieu. Furthermore, in preparation for data driven analyses in the project, interviews with right-wing extremism experts were conducted, which revealed current developments in right-wing extremist internet strategies.

For this study, the online milieu of radical right-wing and extreme right-wing actors was investigated with regard to linking to alternative platforms. The aim of the analysis was to make the cosmos of online platforms used by right-wing extremist and radical right-wing actors accessible to readers and researchers. As established social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube increasingly remove illegal and extremist content due to (self-)regulation and legal pressures, many extreme right-wing and radical right-wing actors find themselves forced to switch to alternative platforms. In order to show their subscribers on the established platforms where their content can be found, many of these actors link to alternative platforms. This dynamic is problematic because the discourses of anti-democratic activists takes place outside of public debates and transparent structures, allowing them to plan actions, expand their networks and spread incitement undisturbed and unchallenged.

This report provides a summary of the expert conference “Im toten Winkel – Wie Rechtsextreme alternative Online-Plattformen zur Radikalisierung nutzen” (In the blind spot – How right-wing extremists use alternative online platforms for radicalisation), which was held as part of the project “Countering radicalisation in right-wing extremist online subcultures” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ). The first annual conference of the project took place from 25 to 26 November 2021 in Berlin as a hybrid event. In addition to the approximately 50 participants who were present at the conference venue, invited guests were also able to follow the event via a closed livestream. The conference served to present current research projects from digital right-wing extremism research and to discuss diverse perspectives from research, regulation and law enforcement.

People do not want social media platforms to facilitate murder, writes Robert Hannigan

On 24th July 2013, feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez’s petition to the Bank of England to have Elizabeth Fry’s image on the UK’s £5 note replaced with the image of another woman was successful. The petition challenged the Bank of England’s original plan to replace Fry with Winston Churchill, which would have meant that no woman aside from the Queen would be represented on any UK banknote. Following this, Criado-Perez was subjected to ongoing misogynistic abuse on Twitter, a microblogging social network, including threats of rape and death. This paper investigates this increasingly prominent phenomenon of rape threats made via social networks. Specifically, we investigate the sustained period of abuse directed towards the Twitter account of feminist campaigner and journalist, Caroline Criado-Perez. We then turn our attention to the formation of online discourse communities as they respond to and participate in forms of extreme online misogyny on Twitter. We take a corpus of 76,275 tweets collected during a three month period in which the events occurred (July to September 2013), which comprises 912,901 words. We then employ an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of language in the context of this social network. Our approach combines quantitative approaches from the fields of corpus linguistics to detect emerging discourse communities, and then qualitative approaches from discourse analysis to analyse how these communities construct their identities.

This study is focused on three topics regarding Geneva Convention III. First, is the process of classifying conflicts either as a Common Article 2 or Common Article 3 armed conflict at the onset of hostilities. Conflict classification is critical to the implementation of the Geneva Conventions in warfare and carries with it vast implications dependent upon that decision. The criterion for this classification is presented and, by using the United States as a case study, evaluated to determine whether this aspect of the conventions remains not only applicable but adequate to states who are a party to the treaty. Determinations of the United States and the legal support backing these decisions are thus investigated.