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Les terroristes et les extrémistes sont avant tout des manipulateurs qui cherchent à exploiter les facteurs de stress présents dans nos sociétés.La pandémie de Covid-19, les mesures de confinement qui en ont découlé ainsi que la propagation de la mésinformation et de la désinformation en ligne qui y sont liées sont donc des conditions idéales à exploiter pour certains acteurs malveillants. Les partisans de l’ultradroite, en particulier, ont rapidement saisi l’occasion offerte par la crise du Covid-19 pour ancrer leurs idées dans le débat public et recruter de nouveaux membres. Bien qu’elle se manifeste principalement en ligne, cette exploitation ne s’est pas limitée à la sphère virtuelle et s’est matérialisée dans des événements réels, par exemple lorsque des extrémistes violents se sont mêlés aux protestations contre le confinement et les restrictions sanitaires et que des plans d’attaques terroristes ont été contrecarrés. Alors que le secteur technologique a rapidement réagi à la vague de désinformation, les changements rapidement apportés aux politiques de modération des contenus en ligne ont déjà des conséquences importantes pour l’avenir de la modération de contenus et de la liberté d’expression en ligne. En effet, le secteur technologique mondial, notamment les réseaux sociaux et les plateformes d’hébergement de contenus, a réagi particulièrement rapidement à la propagation des théories de désinformation et de conspiration liées au Covid-19. Dans cette note, Tech Against Terrorism analyse comment les partisans de l’ultradroite ont exploité l’instabilité causée par la pandémie de Covid-19, et ce que la réponse du secteur technologique signifie pour la liberté d’expression en ligne et la responsabilité des plateformes.

This paper analyses the policy and legal implications related to the promotion of quality online content that supports and reinforces institutional and societal efforts to prevent, counteract and deflate radical discourses leading to violent behaviour. This analysis will focus on content disseminated via online platforms or intermediaries, and in particular on the intermediaries providing hosting services, who offer a relatively wide range of services for online storage, distribution, and sharing; social networking, collaborating and gaming; or searching and referencing.

Though aiming to remedy genuine harms, government regulation of our online lives also raises legitimate concerns over privacy and freedom of expression. We must address online harms whilst ensuring harms are not also inflicted through unfairly infringing on people’s freedoms. HOPE not hate recognises the importance of this balancing act, and encourages a form of regulation of platforms that places democratic rights front-and-centre. In a world increasingly infused with the web, the significance of this legislation cannot be overstated and it is undoubtedly the case that getting it right will take rigorous reflection. To that end, we encourage debate of the recommendations proposed in this report.

The Islamic State (ISIS) was uniquely effective among extremist groups in the Middle East at recruiting Westerners. A major way ISIS accomplished this was by adopting Hollywood-style narrative structures for their propaganda videos. In particular, ISIS utilized a heroic martyr narrative, which focuses on an individual’s personal glory and empowerment, in addition to traditional social martyr narratives, which emphasize duty to kindred and religion. The current work presented adult participants (n = 238) video clips from ISIS propaganda which utilized either heroic or social martyr narratives and collected behavioral measures of appeal, narrative transportation, and psychological dispositions (egoism and empathy) associated with attraction to terrorism. Narrative transportation and the interaction between egoism and empathy predicted video recruitment appeal. A subset of adults (n = 80) underwent electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements while watching a subset of the video-clips. Complementary univariate and multivariate techniques characterized spectral power density differences when perceiving the different types of narratives. Heroic videos show increased beta power over frontal sites, and globally increased alpha. In contrast, social narratives showed greater frontal theta, an index of negative feedback and emotion regulation. The results provide strong evidence that ISIS heroic narratives are specifically processed, and appeal to psychological predispositions distinctly from other recruitment narratives.

This small-scale study brings attention to the way the news media cover the enabling role of computer technology and social media in coalescing online communities focused on the hatred of women and the promotion of violence. While that aggression is ultimately and typically carried out against both women and men, it is specifically misogyny which underlies it. The way that the broader public receives information about incels – involuntary celebates with misogynistic and often violent tendencies – and their atrocities is through the news media, both traditional and internet. This study complements related research on misogynistic language used by social media sites like Reddit by examining the news media’s language in coverage of incels’ behavior associated with sexual aggression. The research applies qualitative procedures (textual analysis) and a critical feminist framework to identify the gender relations associated with incels online in news for the years 2018 and 2019.

This article reviews the academic literature on how and for what purposes violent extremists use the Internet, at both an individual and organizational level. After defining key concepts like extremism, cyber-terrorism and online radicalization, it provides an overview of the virtual extremist landscape, tracking its evolution from static websites and password-protected forums to mainstream social media and encrypted messaging apps. The reasons why violent extremist organizations use online tools are identified and evaluated, touching on propaganda, recruitment, logistics, funding, and hacking. After this, the article turns to the ways violent extremist individuals use the Internet, discussing its role as a facilitator for socialization and learning. The review concludes by considering the emergent literature on how violent extremism is being countered online, touching on both defensive and offensive measures.