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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.

The All Wales Hate Crime Project (Williams & Tregidga 2013, 2014)
highlighted the emerging problem of cyberhate and cyber bulling via social media
through interviews with victims. Opportunities for online engagement have
increased exponentially over the past two decades. In 1999 only 10 per cent of UK
households had access to the Internet. The number had grown to 53 percent in
2005 and to 85 per cent in 2015 (ONS 2015). Estimates put global social media
membership at approximately 2.5 billion non-unique users, with Facebook, Google+
and Twitter accounting for over half of these (Sloan et al. 2015, 2015, Williams et al.
2016). Open and widely accessible social media technologies, such as Twitter and
Facebook, are increasingly being used by citizens on a global scale to publish online
content. The diffusion of information in these networks can manifest itself in a
number of ways, ranging from the positive, such as support of social resilience
through calls for assistance and advice (Morell et al. 2011), to the negative, through
the production and contagion of misinformation and antagonistic and prejudiced
commentary (Burnap et al. 2013, 2014, Williams et al. 2013).

Hate Crime and its commission online is now recognised as a priority by the
UK Government. The sending of menacing messages via the Internet is now
punishable by up to 2 years imprisonment (Malicious Communications Act 1998 as
amended by the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill 2015). The Welsh Government
continues to implement ‘Tackling Hate Crimes and Incidents: A Framework for
Action’ and the fast paced evolution of social media is providing significant
challenges for partners and agencies. Despite this recognition, practitioners can
remain in the dark about the nature, prevalence and resources available to tackle
cyberhate and bulling on social media.
This conference aimed to address this knowledge gap via a series of keynote
presentations from high-profile leaders in the field and via hands on workshops.
This report outlines conference attendee experiences in relation to the current barriers and potential solutions in the area of cyberhate and cyber bullying and puts
forward national recommendations.

Applying cutting-edge psychiatric theories to an analysis of online Taliban literature in four languages, Neil Krishan Aggarwal constructs a game-changing narrative of the organization’s broad appeal and worldview.
Aggarwal focuses on the Taliban’s creation of culture, evoking religion in Arabic and English writings, nationalism in Dari sources, and regionalism in Urdu texts. The group also promotes a specific form of argumentation, citing religious scriptures in Arabic works, canonical poets in Dari and Urdu writings, and scholars and journalists in English publications. We see clearly how the Taliban categorizes all Muslims as members and all non-Muslims as outsiders; how they convince Muslims of the need for violence; and how they apply the insider/outside dichotomy to foreign policy. By isolating these themes, Aggarwal helps us craft better counter-messaging strategies.

This book explores the interface between terrorism and the internet and presents contemporary approaches to understanding violent extremism online.
The volume focuses on four issues in particular: terrorist propaganda on the internet; radicalisation and the internet; counter campaigns and approaches to disrupting internet radicalisation; and approaches to researching and understanding the role of the internet in radicalisation. The book brings together expertise from a wide range of disciplines and geographical regions including Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. These contributions explore the various roles played by the Internet in radicalisation; the reasons why terroristic propaganda may or may not influence others to engage in violence; the role of political conflict in online radicalisation; and the future of research into terrorism and the internet. By covering this broad range of topics, the volume will make an important and timely addition to the current collections on a growing and international subject.

This book will be of much interest to students and researchers of cyber-security, internet politics, terrorism studies, media and communications studies, and International Relations.

Social Media has become an important source for information about people and real-world events. Its importance is driven largely by the enormous number of people generating and updating content in Social Media platforms. In this report, we measure the extent to which we can accurately measure the salience of topics/concepts that might be of interest to an analyst, and evaluate whether concepts like positive and negative sentiment can be meaningfully extracted from Social Media content. As a test case, we examined Twitter content generated by female users who are sympathetic to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The basic technique proposed here can be developed further to create a more fine-grained exanimation of Social Media content.

Jihadists are very active on Twitter but their accounts frequently get suspended. A substantial debate over the effectiveness of suspension has arisen; an important factor is that Jihadists quickly create new accounts, resurging back like a game of whack-a-mole. This causes biases for terrorism and intelligence analysts. Whilst widely acknowledged, little research addresses the problem. In this study we identify resurging Jihadist accounts with novel methods, and provide detailed analysis going beyond previous case-studies. We show that suspension is less disruptive to terrorists than previously thought, whilst the bias and disruption caused to terrorism research has been underestimated.