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In this report, we present an empirical study from Twitter on how Islamist extremists and right wing extremists are active on Twitter. Our study was based on ethnographic, automatic text and network analyses of data from German female and male Twitter accounts.

This year’s Counterterrorism Yearbook draws upon 19 contributing authors, each a renowned thought leader in their field, to promote practical counterterrorism solutions by reviewing a global range of terrorism developments and counterterrorism responses. ASIO’s Director General, Mike Burgess commends the publication for its ‘valuable contribution to the public discourse on counterterrorism’. While maintaining its geographic focus, the Yearbook now includes thematic chapters on mental health, strategic policing, the media, the terror–crime nexus and terrorist innovation. These new thematic chapters have been included to encourage governments to consider more proactive CT agendas that move beyond the current focus on disrupting plots and discouraging people from joining and supporting terrorist groups. The focus here has been on promoting new thinking on how to deal with emergent areas of concern, such as comorbidity of mental health, use of gaming platforms, and artificial intelligence.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

This paper, part of the Legal Perspectives on Tech Series, was commissioned in conjunction with the Congressional Counterterrorism Caucus.

The literature examining use of online counter narratives to divert potential extremists from a path of violence highlights the importance of messenger credibility, interactive approaches, and the shaping of broader network contexts. However, counter‐narrative efforts have often failed to integrate these insights fully into their digital campaigns. After reviewing several prominent counter‐narrative initiatives in the United Kingdom and United States, this article highlights lessons from offline efforts to counter violent extremism (CVE) that can be used to inform counter‐narrative efforts online. First, CVE efforts benefit from using a networked approach where a range of individuals highly connected in their respective social networks are used to disseminate counter narratives. Second, interactive, interpersonal messaging techniques help to remove obstacles to participation in CVE efforts. Third, counter‐extremism messages and narratives are often better received when they relate to broader community concerns and priorities, rather than focusing exclusively on terrorism or violent extremism. Common challenges faced by both offline and online CVE are outlined, and the important synergies between these efforts examined.

This report represents a distillation of current Social, Behavioural and Economic research findings on violent extremism: What is the cultural basis for violent extremism and radicalization? What motivates individuals and groups to violence, and how is that risk measured? How does our understanding of these findings educate the mitigation of extremism? Can it be prevented or reversed? These and other topics are outlined here to open a forward-looking dialog in the research and policy community that will be crucial to formulating future research direction and for addressing this pressing national concern.