Online Library

From Tweeter to Terrorist: Combatting Online Propaganda When Jihad Goes Viral

Magnanville, 13 June, 2016, around 8pm: policeman, Jean-Baptiste Salvaing has been stabbed to death outside his home. Forcing his way into the house, the attacker murders Jessica Schneider, who also worked for the police, by cutting her throat. The couple’s three year-old son is taken hostage by the killer, Larossi Abballa. Prior to a three hour stand-off with police negotiators, Aballa turns to social media to broadcast and justify his actions, dedicating them to his ‘Emir’ Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (Hume et al 2016). It is the first time a terrorist has used a live-streaming service in the midst of an attack. It is unlikely to be the last.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

Purpose – This chapter demonstrates the power that Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (or the “GAFAM”) exercise over platforms within society, highlights the alt-right’s use of GAFAM sites and services as a platform for hate, and examines GAFAM’s establishment and use of hate content moderation apparatuses to de-platform alt-right users and delete hate content. Approach – Drawing upon a political economy of communications approach, this chapter demonstrates GAFAM’s power in society. It also undertakes a reading of GAFAM “terms of service agreements” and “community guidelines” documents to identify GAFAM hate content moderation apparatuses. Findings – GAFAM are among the most powerful platforms in the world, and their content moderation apparatuses are empowered by the US government’s cyber-libertarian approach to Internet law and regulation. GAFAM are defining hate speech, deciding what’s to be done about it, and censoring it. Value – This chapter probes GAFAM’s hate content moderation apparatuses for Internet platforms, and shows how GAFAM enable and constrain the alt-right’s hate speech on their platforms. It also reflexively assesses the politics of empowering GAFAM to de-platform the alt-right.

This briefing is the first in ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series exploring the role online gaming plays in the strategy of far-right extremists in the UK and around the world. This is part of a broader programme on the “Future of Extremism” being delivered by ISD in the second half of 2021, charting the transformational shifts in the extremist threat landscape two decades since 9/11, and the policy strategies required to counter the next generation of extremist threats. The series will include reports exploring extremist activity on four gaming-related platforms: Steam, Discord, DLive and Twitch.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.