Online Library

VOX-Pol Blog post.

Social media and the Internet play an important role in the proliferation of hateful and extreme speech. Looking to contemporary networks of digitally mediated extreme right-wing communication, this essay explores the form, dynamics, and potential governance of digital hate culture. It focuses on the cultural practices and imagination present in the networks of digital hate culture to illuminate how two frames, the Red Pill and white genocide, unify the different groups that take part in these networks. After providing a high-level overview of these networks, this essay explains three formal features of digital hate culture that make it ungovernable: its swarm structure, its exploitation of inconsistencies in web governance between different actors, and its use of coded language to avoid moderation by government or private sector actors. By outlining its cultural style and ungovernable features, this essay provides policy professionals and researchers with an understanding of contemporary digital hate culture and provides suggestions for future approaches to consider when attempting to counter and disrupt the networks on which it depends.

The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering International Terrorism, 2009

Due to recent rises in extremism across the globe (Dean et al. in J Polic Intell Count Terror 11:121–142, 2016; Le Roux in Responding to the rise in violent extremism in the Sahel. Africa Center For Strategic Studies, 2019, p. 26) and (Jones in Int Secur 32:7–40, 2008), governments and law enforcement organisations, such as the police, have looked to new strategies to counter violent extremism (Russell and Theodosiou in Counter-extremism: a decade on from 7/7. Quilliam Foundation, 2015). Specifically, there has been an expanse of the field now widely known as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). CVE is a highly contested area; however, upon conducting a literature review, Inserra (Revisiting efforts to counter violent extremism: leadership needed. The Heritage Foundation, 2015, p. 2) helpfully reduced the term CVE down to descriptions of interventions intended to “stop individuals from radicalizing”. LaFree and Freilich (Annu Rev Criminol 2:383–404, 2019) distinguish counter-terrorism from CVE, they describe counter-terrorism as military responses (‘hard’) as opposed to non-military responses (‘soft’), referred to as countering violent extremism strategies. This chapter contends that, although counter narratives tend to lack academic standing, there does appear to be a widespread acceptance that narratives influence individuals’ beliefs. Therefore, in the absence of other more effective methods of CVE online, it is argued that counter-narratives (CN) should be used in informed ways by organisations such as the police (Monaghan in Crime Media Cult 18(1):21–39, 2020). This chapter will compare academic understandings of narrative and communication alongside examples of counter narratives issued against them. It will then assess the impact of such strategies and potential alternatives for CN.

Financiers and fundraisers for al-Qaida and Islamic State (ISIS) are active
users of popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and Instagram, in some cases even after being placed on a
United Nations or US government sanctions list. Terrorist financiers
and fundraisers have utilized social media to attract and direct funding
to procure weapons, pay salaries, strengthen infrastructure and operate
civil and social services. While the amount of funding raised via social
media is far less in comparison to revenues from oil sales or taxation,
al-Qaida and ISIS fundraisers have taken credit for millions of dollars
raised using social media-based campaigns—significant amounts by
any standard.
Terrorist financiers and fundraisers for al-Qaida and ISIS have relied on
social media services to communicate with colleagues and supporters,
attract new followers globally, and promote aligned causes and
organizations. With their potential to spur viral content growth, social
media services enable fundraisers to more quickly and effectively solicit
support and reach larger audiences.
Social media companies have actively terminated the accounts of
terrorist facilitators—including a number of designated terrorist
fundraisers and financiers—citing violations of their respective terms
of service restrictions that prohibit support for violence or hate speech
[see pg.12]. For example, in early February 2016 Twitter announced the
closure of more than 125,000 accounts “for threatening or promoting
terrorist acts, primarily related to ISIS,” noting that social media platforms
are “forced to make challenging judgment calls based on very limited
information and guidance.”1 Facebook has also stepped up its efforts
to remove users who back terror groups, and YouTube has taken down
content and terminated users who post terrorist material.2

Emerging communication technologies, and social media platforms in particular, play an increasingly important role
in the radicalization and mobilization processes of violent and non-violent extremists (Archetti, 2015; Cohen et al.,
2014; Farwell, 2014; Klausen, 2015). However, the extent to which extremists utilize social media, and whether it
influences terrorist outcomes, is still not well understood (Conway, 2017). This research brief expands the current
knowledge base by leveraging newly collected data on the social media activities of 479 extremists in the PIRUS
dataset who radicalized between 2005 and 2016.
1 This includes descriptive analyses of the frequency of social
media usage among U.S. extremists, the types of social media platforms used, the differences in the rates of social
media use by ideology and group membership, the purposes of social media use, and the impact of social media on
foreign fighter travel and domestic terrorism plots.