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The issue of radicalization has drawn significant attention over the last decade, as high-profile mobilizations and far-right violence grow increasingly prevalent in the United States. This has been accompanied by a particular interest in radicalization in the online context, as far-right recruitment and organizing increasingly leverages the affordances of digital platforms. In this dissertation, I advance theoretical understandings of online radicalization processes by analyzing differential participation within one growing and under-examined segment of the far-right: secular male supremacist movements. Based on prior literature identifying increasing extremism in these spaces, and increasing instances of users moving between distinct but related communities, I address two specific research questions: 1) what individual and community-level factors drive differences in engagement in male supremacist communities; and 2) what individual and community-level factors predict user migration to more extreme male supremacist communities?

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

Social media companies have long struggled with what to do about extremist content on their platforms. While most companies include provisions about “extremist” content in their community standards, until recently, such content was often vaguely defined, providing policymakers and content moderators a wide berth in determining what to remove, and what to allow. Unfortunately, companies have responded with overbroad and vague policies and practices that have led to mistakes at scale that are decimating human rights content.

This book highlights cyber racism as an ever growing contemporary phenomenon. Its scope and impact reveals how the internet has escaped national governments, while its expansion is fuelling the spread of non-state actors. In response, the authors address the central question of this topic: What is to be done? Cyber Racism and Community Resilience demonstrates how the social sciences can be marshalled to delineate, comprehend and address the issues raised by a global epidemic of hateful acts against race. Authored by an inter-disciplinary team of researchers based in Australia, this book presents original data that reflects upon the lived, complex and often painful reality of race relations on the internet. It engages with the various ways, from the regulatory to the role of social activist, which can be deployed to minimise the harm often felt. This book will be of particular interest to students and academics in the fields of cybercrime, media sociology and cyber racism.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

While al Qaeda has used the Internet primarily to spread its propaganda and to rally new recruits, the terrorist group has also relied on the Internet for financing-related purposes. Other Islamist terrorist groups, including Hamas, Lashkar e-Taiba, and Hizballah have also made extensive use of the Internet to raise and transfer needed funds to support their activities. The Internet’s appeal in this regard for terrorist groups is readily apparent–offering a broad reach, timely efficiency, as well as a certain degree of anonymity and security for both donors and recipients. Unfortunately, while many governments now recognize that the Internet is an increasingly valuable tool for terrorist organizations, the response to this point has been inconsistent. For the U.S. and its allies to effectively counter this dangerous trend, they will have to prioritize their efforts in this area in the years to come.