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This paper, part of the Legal Perspectives on Tech Series, was commissioned in conjunction with the Congressional Counterterrorism Caucus.

While certain areas of the Islamic State’s activities (propaganda, recruitment, etc.) are well researched, there have been few studies covering the efforts of the organization to neutralize deplatformization, even though its inclusion in a unified system makes it possible to successfully fight against the organization. The present study investigated the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) applied by the Islamic State to maintain its online presence against the deplatforming efforts of law enforcement agencies and social media stakeholders. A closely related topic, namely the key components of the organization’s successful internet activity, is also examined in this article. During the research, authors mapped and plotted one part of the Islamic State’s internet ecosystem to discover the pattern in this interconnected network. Furthermore, the authors elaborated on a volunteer computing based recommendation for paralysing Islamic State-linked websites.

This chapter critically discusses the evidence suggesting that the Internet and SMPs affect radicalisation to violent extremism. The chapter specifically focuses on arguments surrounding echo chambers, opportunities for women to remain anonymous and the role of identity construction for the youth. The study also critically discusses the evidence negating the notion that the Internet and SMPs can affect radicalisation to terrorism and violent extremism. The discussion focuses primarily on offline persuasion and a ‘false dichotomy’. Based on this critical analysis, the chapter argues that the Internet and SMPs play an important role in the radicalisation of youth and women based on the increased opportunities that might not otherwise be provided in the offline world despite the methodological issues around the evidence. Furthermore, it is argued that evidence does not successfully demonstrate that echo chambers on the Internet affect radicalisation to violent extremism. Whilst acknowledging that offline persuasion also plays a significant role and the evidence suggesting a ‘false dichotomy’, the chapter also argues that it would not be effective to research online and offline radicalisation as an integrated model. This is due to the fact that there still exists a lack of understanding and empirical research around online radicalisation as well as radicalisation in general.

With the popularity and ease of using social media platforms, users are able to, in varying capacities, connect with others in varying capacities. During 2015, there were approximately 305 million worldwide active monthly Twitter users. While Twitter has maintained implementation of their counter-extremism policies, supporters of ISIS have found ways to navigate around them and continue to use their platform as a means to connect with others. With 140 characters per Tweet, ISIS supporters are able to recruit and promote propaganda quickly with users around the world. By using a data set containing 16,841 Tweets from 104 ISIS supporters following the November 2015 attacks in Paris, content analysis will be conducted on the tweet itself to look for reoccurring themes and keywords. By understanding the keywords and reoccurring themes, military, law enforcement, and private sector counterterrorism units can better understand and implement policies and procedures relating to ISIS and the ways that they continuously navigate around the counter-extremism policies on Twitter.

This study explores how an extreme far-right alternative media site uses content from pro-fessional media to convey uncivil news with an antisemitic message. Analytically, it rests on a critical discourse analysis of 231 news items, originating from established national and international news sources, published on Frihetskamp from 2011–2018. In the study, we explore how news items are recontextualised to portray both overt and covert antisemitic discourses, and we identify four antisemitic representations that are reinforced through the selection and adjustment of news: Jews as powerful, as intolerant and anti-liberal, as exploiters of victimhood, and as inferior. These conspiratorial and exclusionary ideas, also known from historical Nazi propaganda, are thus reproduced by linking them to con-temporary societal and political contexts and the current news agenda. We argue that this kind of recontextualised, uncivil news can be difficult to detect in a digital public sphere.