Online Library

This Perspective presents options for operationalizing recent RAND Corporation findings about ISIS opponents and supporters on Twitter. This paper formulates a countermessaging approach for two main communication pathways. First, we articulate an approach for working with influential Twitter users in the Arab world to promote bottom-up and authentic counter-ISIS messaging. Second, we highlight ways that U.S. and partner governments and nongovernmental organizations can use our analysis to more effectively implement top-down messaging to directly counter ISIS support on Twitter. Our original study found that there are six times the number of ISIS opponents than there are supporters on Twitter. We argue that it is critical to empower these influencers by drawing on lessons from the commercial marketing industry. We consequently highlight approaches to identify influencers on social media and empower them with both training and influential content.

We announced this inquiry into hate crime and its violent consequences in early July 2016. Our decision to undertake the inquiry followed the murder of Jo Cox MP in June in the lead-up to the EU referendum. There was also evidence of an increase in the number of attacks on people from ethnic minorities and of non-British nationality, including on their community centres and places of worship, immediately following the referendum. In addition, our inquiry into antisemitism was already under way, which was raising serious questions about how to address wider issues around the actions of those holding extremist or fixated views. It therefore seemed particularly timely and necessary to launch this
inquiry. We have received a large volume of written evidence. We have taken oral evidence on a wide range of issues including Islamophobia, misogyny, far-right extremism, the role of social media in hate crime and the particular issues faced by Members of Parliament in relation to hate crime and its violent manifestations. Our witnesses have included
academics, community organisations, social media companies, police forces and their representative organisations, the principal Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, and Ministers. We are grateful to everyone who has contributed to the inquiry.

This Research Paper sheds light on the experience of the pioneering Saudi–based independent online counter– radicalization campaign called ‘Sakinah’ (Tranquillity), launched in 2003. Relying on multiple interviews and discussions with the founder and head of the campaign the writer of this Research Note was granted exclusive access to early archived campaign materials and records of dialogues with terrorists and radicals. This Research Note is able to highlight the history and methodology of the campaign’s work, the shifted motivations of radicals over time, and the importance of such initiatives and efforts. It also shows how, as a result of the changing nature and environment in which radicals operate, the campaign innovated its strategies and moved from a defensive counter-narrative engagement towards more offensive, proactive messaging aimed at eliciting specific reactions and taking control of the narrative and debate.

A range of psychological, social, and environmental factors render some individuals more susceptible to militant Islam than others. Research also suggests that there are certain “triggers,” which help to explain why it is that only some individuals exposed to the same societal structural influences turn to violence. This article seeks to contribute to future empirical research in this area by studying the significance of certain “charismatic” preachers in this process and examining the role the Internet plays in strengthening the charismatic bond. Difficulties in defining and measuring “charisma” may help in part to explain the paucity of research on this aspect of radicalization but since charismatic authority derives from the bond between preacher and follower, an examination of the activities, strategies, and techniques used to build relationships and win adherents to Salafi-jihadism may provide valuable insights for countering radicalization.

Society faces a fundamental global problem of understanding which individuals are currently developing strong support for some extremist entity such as ISIS (Islamic State) – even if they never end up doing anything in the real world. The importance of online connectivity in developing intent has been confirmed by recent case-studies of already convicted terrorists. Here we identify dynamical patterns in the online trajectories that individuals take toward developing a high level of extremist support – specifically, for ISIS. Strong memory effects emerge among individuals whose transition is fastest, and hence may become ‘out of the blue’ threats in the real world. A generalization of diagrammatic expansion theory helps quantify these characteristics, including the impact of changes in geographical location, and can facilitate prediction of future risks. By quantifying the trajectories that individuals follow on their journey toward expressing high levels of pro-ISIS support — irrespective of whether they then carry out a real-world attack or not – our findings can help move safety debates beyond reliance on static watch-list identifiers such as ethnic background or immigration status, and/or post-fact interviews with already-convicted individuals. Given the broad commonality of social media platforms, our results likely apply quite generally: for example, even on Telegram where (like Twitter) there is no built-in group feature as in our study, individuals tend to collectively build and pass through so-called super-group accounts.

This report presents research carried out within the project (Ku2016/01373/D – Uppdrag till Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut (FOI) att göra kartläggningar och analyser av våldsbejakande extremistisk propaganda) that has been assigned to the Swedish defence research agency by the Swedish Government. The project will continue until March 2019. The report briefly describes the channels of communication that prevail on the Internet, as and the methods used for the analyses. Since computer support makes it possible to analyse large amounts of data and to identify patterns that are difficult for humans to observe, the analyses carried out within the project are mainly computer supported. Using examples, the report provides insight into how proponents of violent extremist ideologies convey their messages online, which we hope can lead to further discussions about propaganda and hate messages. The report also contains some examples of analyses; an analysis of jargon in a webforum, a comparative study of a sample of immigration-critic alternative media, and a machine learning-based study of text written by violent lone offenders.