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The objective of this report is to provide strategic guidance to tech companies, government policy makers, and solution providers in order to increase and improve investment into effective technical approaches that support platforms in tackling the terrorist use of internet services while respecting human rights. While stopping short of providing a detailed roadmap for development, this report aims to provide the overall framework for prioritization of effort given the complex nature of the terrorist threat and the challenges faced by tech companies in adapting to this threat and increased regulatory pressures from governments.

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) Legal Frameworks Working Group brought together a range of different stakeholders, including Government, civil society, technology companies, academics, regulators and practitioners. This paper is intended to capture the range of discussion topics covered by the group, outline the primary issues the group identified, and highlight potential areas for further work and discussion.

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) Crisis Response Working Group (CRWG) was established in April 2020 as part of the GIFCT substantive Working Group structure. The CRWG’s objective is to drive effective collaboration among industry, government, and law enforcement to minimize the spread of terrorist or violent extremist content online stemming from an offline event.

Germany’s Network Enforcement Act, or NetzDG law represents a key test for combatting hate speech on the internet. Under the law, which came into effect on January 1, 2018, online platforms face fines of up to €50 million for systemic failure to delete illegal content. Supporters see the legislation as a necessary and efficient response to the threat of online hatred and extremism. Critics view it as an attempt to privatise a new ‘draconian’ censorship regime, forcing social media platforms to respond to this new painful liability with unnecessary takedowns. This study shows that the reality is in between these extremes. NetzDG has not provoked mass requests for takedowns. Nor has it forced internet platforms to adopt a ‘take down, ask later’ approach. At the same time, it remains uncertain whether NetzDG has achieved significant results in reaching its stated goal of preventing hate speech. This paper begins by explaining the background that led to the development and passage of NetzDG. It examines the reaction to the law by civil society, platforms and the government. It concludes with suggestions, for platforms, civil society and the authorities, on ways to improve the law to be effective in the fight against online hate while keeping the internet open and free.

This thesis examines why approximately 700 German foreign fighters traveled to Syria and Iraq between early 2012 and late 2015. It presents the author’s original research on 99 German foreign fighter profiles, examining their preexisting network connections in Germany as well as their biographical availability and integration into German society. The study finds that German foreign fighters are primarily mobilized through traditional social network connections and that the mobilizing network in Germany consists of a nationwide, interconnected, and politically active “Salafist scene.” The project also finds that while Western governments often worry about the looming threat of online radicalization, verifiable examples of purely Internet-based radicalization remain rare.

We introduce a generalized form of gelation theory that incorporates individual heterogeneity and show that it can explain the asynchronous, sudden appearance and growth of online extremist groups supporting ISIS (so-called Islamic State) that emerged globally post-2014. The theory predicts how heterogeneity impacts their onset times and growth profiles and suggests that online extremist groups present a broad distribution of heterogeneity-dependent aggregation mechanisms centered around homophily. The good agreement between the theory and empirical data suggests that existing strategies aiming to defeat online extremism under the assumption that it is driven by a few “bad apples” are misguided. More generally, this generalized theory should apply to a range of real-world systems featuring aggregation among heterogeneous objects.