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This paper investigates the link between social media and hate crime using hand-collected data from Facebook and Twitter. We study the case of Germany, where the recently emerged right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has developed a major social media presence. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that right-wing anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook predicts violent crimes against refugees in otherwise similar municipalities with higher social media usage. Consistent with social media being the driving force, the effect decreases with internet outages; increases with user network interactions; is not driven by the news cycle; and does not hold for posts unrelated to refugees. We find similar evidence for the United States, where President Trump’s twitter activity strongly predicts hate crimes against the minorities targeted in his tweets, but not other minorities. We find no effect for the period before Trump’s presidential campaign or measures of general anti-minority sentiment.

Over recent years, the German extreme right has undergone significant changes, including the appropriation of symbols, styles, and action repertoires of contemporary (youth) cultures, sometimes even taken from the far left. In this article, we investigate extreme right visual communication through Facebook, focusing on claims to truth and authentic Nazism in relation to ‘history’, ‘nature’, and ‘gender roles’. These themes were central in National Socialism, but today need to be (re)negotiated vis-à-vis contemporary (youth) cultures. We show that while a traditional notion of ideological authority is enabled through visuals, there is also a strand of imagery depicting and celebrating ‘intimate’ communion. While this simultaneity leads to tensions within the ‘ideal extreme right subject’, we argue that such dilemmas can also be productive, allowing for the (re)negotiation of classic National Socialist doctrine in the context of contemporary (youth) cultures, and thus, potentially, for a revitalisation of the extreme right.

This chapter focuses on the instructional content, both text and images, published in 26 issues of three jihadi magazines: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire, Inspire’s forerunner Jihad Recollections, and Somali Al-Shabab’s Gaidi M’taani. Instruction was found to be a core component of Inspire as distinct from the varying types and levels of instruction appearing in Jihad Recollections and Gaidi M’taani. Noticeable too was that the text and images composing bomb-making instructional guides were not only the commonest, but also the most detailed types of guides contained in Inspire, with both a high number of images and lengthy supporting text. A clear finding is thus that the purpose of AQAP’s Inspire was not just to inspire readers, in the sense of infusing them with some thought or feeling, but also to supply them with instructions on how these thoughts or feelings could be violently actuated.

Terrorist use of the Internet has become a focus of media, policy, and scholarly attention in recent years. Terrorists use the Internet in a variety of ways, the most important being for propaganda purposes and operations-related content, but it is also potentially a means or target of attack. This book presents revised versions of a selection of papers delivered at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on ‘Terrorists’ Use of the Internet’ held in Dublin, Ireland in June 2016. One aim of the workshop was to nurture dialogue between members of the academic, policy and practitioner communities, so the 60 delegates from 13 countries who attended the workshop included representatives from each of these. The participants encompassed a wide range of expertise (including engineering, computer science, law, criminology, political science, international relations, history, and linguistics) and the chapters contained herein reflect these diverse professional and disciplinary backgrounds. The workshop also aimed to address the convergence of threats. Following an introduction which provides an overview of the various ways in which terrorists use the Internet, the book’s remaining 25 chapters are grouped into 5 sections on cyber terrorism and critical infrastructure protection; cyber-enabled terrorist financing; jihadi online propaganda; online counterterrorism; and innovative approaches and responses. The book will be of interest to all those who need to maintain an awareness of the ways in which terrorists use the Internet and require an insight into how the threats posed by this use can be countered.

Terrorism. Why does this word grab our attention so? Propaganda machines have adopted modern technology as a means to always have their content available. Regardless of the hour or time zone, information is being shared by somebody, somewhere. Social media is a game changer influencing the way in which terror groups are changing their tactics and also how their acts of terror are perceived by the members of the public they intend to influence.

This book explores how social media adoption by terrorists interacts with privacy law, freedom of expression, data protection and surveillance legislation through an exploration of the fascinating primary resources themselves, covering everything from the Snowden Leaks, the rise of ISIS to Charlie Hebdo. The book also covers lesser worn paths such as the travel guide that proudly boasts that you can get Bounty and Twix bars mid-conflict, and the best local hair salons for jihadi brides. These vignettes, amongst the many others explored in this volume bring to life the legal, policy and ethical debates considered in this volume, representing an important part in the development of understanding terrorist narratives on social media, by framing the legislative debate.

The importance of the Internet and social media in politics has been demonstrated in previous years, when terms such as ‘Twitter revolution’ and ‘Facebook revolution’ were used repeatedly for several movements, and now new terms such as ‘digital threat’ and ‘digital Jihad’ are being used by many in similar fashion. In the age of the Internet, the advantages often associated with the democratizing effect of the Internet are creating an atmosphere for different users, such as Daesh. Global propaganda is an important part of Daesh’s activities, and radicalization is one of the realities of our era. Although the impact of the Internet and social media on processes of people’s radicalization remains a highly contested subject and has been one of the most controversial topics during the last decade, the main question is whether the Internet is the main factor in the radicalization of civilians, considering that some politicians and pundits have been discussing this issue over the past few years, or it is more of a communication tool, facilitator and catalyst, pushing people towards radicalization. In this article, I discuss two different approaches to the relationship between technology (online activities in different platforms) and radicalization. This article is part of an ongoing research project.