Online Library

Efforts at Countering Violent Extremism (or CVE in internationally
accepted terminology) online have become an important focus for all social
networks. CVE targets violent, extremist ideologies at their core, tackling
them via alternate narratives that focus on peace-building through
community interaction. It has thus become an invaluable tool to supplement
counterterrorism strategies worldwide.

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 article explores hate speech against the Roma in Slovakia on Facebook between April 2016 and January 2017 and the impact of fact-checking and personal experience strategies in countering hate speech through a quasi-experimental research design. It examines how the Roma were constructed and how discussion participants reacted to our pro-Roma interventions. The research sample consisted of 60 Facebook discussions (with more than 7,500 comments) on Roma-related topics posted by the profiles of various members of the Slovak Parliament and the most popular online news media outlets. Qualitative content analysis revealed that the Roma in Facebook discussions were constructed primarily in a negative sense, as asocial criminals misusing welfare benefits. This study demonstrated that Facebook discussion participants presenting anti-Roma attitudes did not use any research evidence to support their constructions. It also demonstrated that pro-Roma comments encouraged other participants with a pro-Roma attitude to become involved.

What explains online radicalization and support for ISIS in the West? Over the past few years, thousands of individuals have radicalized by consuming extremist content online, many of whom eventually traveled overseas to join the Islamic State. This study examines whether anti-Muslim hostility might drive pro-ISIS radicalization in Europe. Using new geo-referenced data on the online behavior of thousands of Islamic State supporters in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium, I study whether the intensity of anti-Muslim hostility at the local (neighborhood/municipality) level is linked to pro-ISIS radicalization on Twitter. Results show that local-level measures of anti-Muslim animosity correlate significantly and substantively with indicators of online radicalization, including posting tweets sympathizing with ISIS, describing life in ISIS-controlled territories, discussing foreign fighters, and expressing anti-West sentiment. High-frequency data surrounding events that stir anti-Muslim hostility — terrorist attacks and anti-Muslim protests in Europe — show the same pattern.

Over the past decade, a large number of extremist and hate groups have turned to internet platforms to inspire mass violence. Currently, there is little reliable evidence on how such campaigns radicalize targeted audiences. We provide systematic, large-scale, microevidence on the effect of Islamic State propaganda on social media. We use several machine learning algorithms to detect recruitment messages in online propaganda, identify their dissemination on Twitter, and quantify the reactions of exposed users. Analyzing content produced by the Islamic State between 2015 and 2016 shows that propaganda conveying the material, spiritual, and social benefits of joining ISIS increased online support for the group, while content displaying brutal violence decreased endorsement of ISIS across a wide range of videos. Only the group’s most extreme supporters reacted positively to violent propaganda.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.