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This Comment addresses issues unique to potentially terrorist content targeted by Internet platforms’ Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) efforts. It focuses in particular on Islamist extremism, though some of the analysis may be generalized to other contexts.

In this paper, I review U.S. constitutional considerations for lawmakers seeking to balance terrorist threats against free expression online. The point is not to advocate for any particular rule. In particular, I do not seek to answer moral or norms-based questions about what content Internet platforms should take down. I do, however, note the serious tensions between calls for platforms to remove horrific but First Amendment-protected extremist content – a category that probably includes the Christchurch shooter’s video – and calls for them to function as “public squares” by leaving up any speech the First Amendment permits. To lay out the issue, I draw on analysis developed at greater length in previous publications. This analysis concerns large user-facing platforms like Facebook and Google, and the word “platform” as used here refers to those large companies, not their smaller counterparts.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

The approach from the far-right in producing and disseminating visual propaganda has allowed for a persistent online presence to be maintained, despite efforts to remove extremist and hateful content. This chapter will critically explore the academic literature which considers how far-right actors are taking advantages of the affordances of online communication routes to spread visual propaganda. Three key strategies which emerge from the literature will be critically discussed to understand the role of visual imagery in facilitating and maintaining far-right online discourse. Firstly, the use of imagery to other out-groups through boundary construction will be considered. From understanding how such representations drive online engagement, the second strategy of image and information manipulation will be discussed. This strategy will consider how the far-right take advantage of social media systems to garner more visibility through manipulating and framing imagery. Lastly, considerations will be made towards how humour through meme images and board subculture have been used as a strategy to lower the boundary for the participation in extremist ideology.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

This report presents findings from a quantitative study, which aimed to explore the role of the Internet in radicalisation and offending of 235 convicted extremists in England and Wales.