Welcome to VOX-Pol’s Online Library, a research and teaching resource, which collects in one place a large volume of publications related to various aspects of violent online political extremism.
Testimony, U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, Jihadist Use of Social Media: How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation
On Tuesday, December 6, 2011 the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing entitled “Jihadist Use of Social Media – How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation.”
Social Media Intelligence to Combat Extremist and Terrorist Support: Can an Orthodox Focus on Unlawful Groups Survive in the Era of QAnon, Anti-vax Conspiracy Belief, and Stop the Steal?
It has become a familiar observation that social media usage can afford material assistance to the advancement of violent extremist or terrorist causes and can be a tool for counter-extremism and counter-terrorism efforts. This chapter discusses how several core supporting pillars of extremism mesh with social media in apparently similar ways to non-extremist activity and then considers the limited available literature on non-extremist online fundraising, moving thereafter to the literature which is more focused specifically on the study of social media funding for extremist or terrorist causes. It highlights the potential role of symbolic representation of shared values on social media and how this can help to address the challenges of an era where large-scale but ostensibly non-extremist movements such as QAnon and Stop the Steal arguably share some values in common with extremist causes and hence are a potential funding reservoir not necessarily observed if one focuses on specific extremist messaging content or extremist symbology.
Beating ISIS in the Digitial Space: Focus Testing ISIS Defector Counter-Narrative Videos with American College Students
ISIS recruits on a 24/7 basis in over 21 languages over the Internet using videos, memes, tweets and other social media postings and swarming in on anyone that retweets, likes or endorses their materials to try to seduce them into the group. Their unprecedented social media drive has resulted in over 30,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries migrating to Syria and Iraq. ISIS recruitment in the U.S. is for the most part Internet based and has resulted in the actual and attempted recruitment of over 100 individuals residing in the U.S. with over 200 Americans traveling to Syria to join terrorist groups. To date very little counter-narrative material exists and most of it is cognitive versus emotionally impactful. The International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) Breaking the ISIS Brand – the ISIS Defectors Interviews Project has managed to collect 43 ISIS defector interviews and thus far produce two video clips of ISIS defectors denouncing the group which were focus tested in this research in a small normative college student sample of 75 undergraduate students. The results demonstrate that American college students find the videos authentic, disturbing and turn them away from ISIS, fulfilling the goals that the project is aiming for in producing counter-narrative materials.
