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This report assesses the ethics and politics of policing online extremist material, using the normative framework of international human rights law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, European Convention on Human Rights and
the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights – whilst not conducting a legal analysis. It draws where appropriate upon interpretations by the UN Human Rights Committee, UN experts (such as the High Commissioner for Human Rights and special mandate holders), and regional human rights bodies and courts (such as the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights). The report looks at definitions of ‘extremist material’; the types of monitoring and blocking being undertaken by government agencies and the private sector; and considers the roles of these key stakeholders, along with private individuals and civil society groups. It is based on a two-day workshop in January 2015 with thirty expert stakeholders from law enforcement and intelligence agencies, governments and parliaments, civil society, and universities. Short versions of ten papers were presented to stimulate discussion, following an open call for extended abstracts. These are available on the VOX-Pol website: http://voxpol.eu/.

The authors conducted seven follow-up semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from law enforcement, industry, government and civil society; and background policy analysis. The first author also co-organised a workshop on privacy and online policing with the UK’s National Crime Agency in March 2015, and participated in three further workshops where the topics of this report were addressed: two on law enforcement use of communications data, and a third at the United Nations on the relationship between encryption and freedom of expression. Both authors are grateful for the assistance of interviewees, co-organisers, and workshop participants.

The report is produced by the EU-funded VOX-Pol Network of Excellence, and takes particular account of the network’s development of semi-automated search for violent online extremist content and deployment of available tools for search and analytics, including text, video, sentiment, etc., currently employed in other domains for analysis of violent online extremist content. The network’s focus 6 CHECK THE WEB is on making these tools freely available for research purposes to academics, but may also extend to others professionally tasked in this area (such as activists and law enforcement agencies). It is also centrally concerned with the ethical aspects of deployment of such tools and technologies.

Islamic State (IS) terrorist networks in Syria and Iraq pose threats to national security. IS’ exploitation of social media and digital strategy plays a key role in its global dissemination of propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment. However, systematic research on Islamic terrorist communication via social media is limited. Our research investigates the question: How do IS members/supporters use Twitter for terrorism communication: propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment? Theoretically, we drew on microeconomic network theories to develop a theoretical framework for multi-sided Twitter networks in the global Islamic terrorist communication environment. Empirically, we collected 3,039 tweets posted by @shamiwitness who was identified in prior research as “an information disseminator” for the IS cause. Methodologically, we performed social network analysis, trend and content analyses of the tweet data. We find strong evidence for Shamiwitness-intermediated multi-sided Twitter networks of international mass media, regional Arabic mass media, IS fighters, and IS sympathizers, supporting the framework’s utility.

Islamic State relies heavily on the recruitment of foreign fighters. We examine this recruitment from an
organizational perspective. We analyze how the process of recruitment of foreigners shapes the adverse selection
problem affecting the dissident groups that they join. We also examine the different mechanisms used to
maintain the allegiance and compliance of foreigners as opposed to indigenous recruits. More broadly, we
analyze how the recruitment of foreign fighters affects the organization. Foreign fighters and local recruits exhibit
significant differences in recruitment patterns and motivations for joining IS. This could create problems for the
organization. Evidence of such strife, however, is not discernible. Given the information at hand, IS appears to be
effectively managing the mix of foreign and local recruits.

This article seeks to examine, quantitatively and qualitatively, one week of official media releases of the Islamic State (IS). Due to the breadth of IS official media releases, this provides a snapshot upon which to better understand the different styles and messaging streams IS releases on a weekly basis. The article shows that IS produces much more material, and on a broader range of topics, than what gets reported in the mainstream media. Execution videos make up just a fraction of the overall output and are dwarfed by the number of IS productions on military affairs, governance, preaching, moral policing, and other themes. The analysis also shows that IS relies very heavily on visual as opposed to text-based propaganda, and that most of its military activities take place in Iraq, not Syria.

In this article we investigate the evolution of ISIS by analysing the text contained in Dabiq, the official
ISIS’ internet magazine in English. Specifically, we used a computerized text analysis pro-gram
LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to investigate the evolution of the language of the first
11 Issues of Dabiq. First, our analysis showed that affiliation seems to be an increasingly important
psychological motive for the group. Secondly, ISIS has been increasingly using emotions, which
are an important mobilizing factor in collective action literature, in a strategic manner. Thirdly,
ISIS language presents an increasing concern with females. Last but not least, our analysis shows
that ISIS has been increasingly using internet jargon (net-speak), which shows how the group tries
to adapt itself to the internet environment and to connect with the identities of young individuals.