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The independent Commission for Countering Extremism has published a legal review, to examine whether existing legislation adequately deals with hateful extremism.

Acts of terror lead to both a rise of an extended sense of fear that goes beyond the physical location of the attacks and to increased expressions of online hate. In this longitudinal study, we analyzed dynamics between the exposure to online hate and the fear of terrorism after the Paris attacks in November 13, 2015. We hypothesized that exposure to online hate is connected to a perceived Zeitgeist of fear (i.e., collective fear). In turn, the perceived Zeitgeist of fear is related to higher personal fear of terrorism both immediately after the attacks and a year later. Hypotheses were tested using path modeling and panel data (N = 2325) from Norway, Finland, Spain, France, and the United States a few weeks after the Paris attacks in November 2015 and again a year later in January 2017. With the exception of Norway, exposure to online hate had a positive association with the perceived Zeitgeist of fear in all our samples. The Zeitgeist of fear was correlated with higher personal fear of terrorism immediately after the attacks and one year later. We conclude that online hate content can contribute to the extended sense of fear after the terrorist attacks by skewing perceptions of social climate.

Moonshot partnered with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to analyze US search traffic in response to the threats posed by white supremacist narratives and ideology in the US this past year. The dominant socio-political events of 2020-2021—the COVID-19 pandemic, the widespread BLM protests and counter-protests, and the presidential election—coalesced to create fertile ground for white supremacists and other violent extremist movements to mobilize and recruit. From 18 August 2020 – 7 March 2021, we recorded 511,759 white supremacist searches across the United States. We identified trends such as anti-Black search traffic, interest in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and a sustained appetite for “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Ultimately, we found that offline events seemed to catalyze search traffic for extremist content online.

Objective: This paper applies Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory to explain the role of exposure to violent extremist content online in the wider psychological process of “radicalization.” Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory is a suitable theory to apply to this domain given that (a) the motivation to engage in violent extremism is widely discussed, yet motivational theories are rarely applied and (b) current risk factors for engagement in violent extremist behavior show a high degree of overlap with core Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory variables (e.g., impulsivity and social dominance). Method: This study uses an experimental design in which 479 participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk were randomly assigned one of two short vignettes (violent extremist/violent nonextremist) to frame the content of a social media-based behavioral task. The effect of exposure to violent extremist content online on intentions for political mobilization was measured via the Activism and Radicalism Intentions Scale. Results: While exposure to online violent extremist content did not increase tendencies for political mobilization, Behavioral Activation System traits were positively associated with the willingness to engage with violent extremist content online and with intentions for political mobilization. Conclusions: Behavioral Activation System traits provide a possible avenue to explain individual differences in the process of radicalization and the potential relevance of Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory for theories of radicalization provides further evidence that new knowledge that can be gleaned by applying established psychological theories to the study of radicalization.

The present article contends that terrorist activism on the Internet is determined by the technical configuration and ease of use of the tool. Engagement in Internet activities considered criminal offenses is not only explained by a progression in the level of radicalization of the individual. Rather, the type of barriers to entry which they must overcome plays a decisive role in the decision. The article classifies the various Internet spaces featuring terrorist content under the categories of “hard platforms” and “friendly platforms”. This differentiation will enable us to identify how the barriers to entry to such activism have evolved over the last two decades and how this evolution has been responsible for different levels of terrorist mobilization in cyberspace. The investigation focuses on jihadist terrorism and uses the antiterrorist operations carried out in Spain during the period 2001-2020 as a case study.

Objectives
Despite popular notions of “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” contributing to radicalization, little evidence exists to support these hypotheses. However, social structure social learning theory would suggest a hereto untested interaction effect.
Methodology
An RCT of new Twitter users in which participants were randomly assigned to a treatment of “filter bubble” (personalization algorithm) suppression. Ego-centric network and survey data were combined to test the effects on justification for suicide bombings.
Findings
Statistically significant interaction effects were found for two proxies of the echo chamber, the E-I index and modularity. For the treatment group, higher scores on both factors decreased the likelihood for radicalization, with opposing trends in the control group.
Conclusions
The echo chamber effect may be dependent on the filter bubble. More research is needed on online network structures in radicalization. While personalization algorithms can potentially be harmful, they may also be leveraged to facilitate interventions.