Online Library

Purpose
With the proliferation of terrorist/extremist websites on the World Wide Web, it has become progressively more crucial to detect and analyze the content on these websites. Accordingly, the volume of previous research focused on identifying the techniques and activities of terrorist/extremist groups, as revealed by their sites on the so-called dark web, has also grown.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents a review of the techniques used to detect and process the content of terrorist/extremist sites on the dark web. Forty of the most relevant data sources were examined, and various techniques were identified among them.
Findings
Based on this review, it was found that methods of feature selection and feature extraction can be used as topic modeling with content analysis and text clustering.
Originality/value
At the end of the review, present the current state-of-the- art and certain open issues associated with Arabic dark Web content analysis.

Research surrounding radicalization to and use of violence among extremist and terror groups has expanded over the last decade. There are still fundamental questions that must be addressed, particularly regarding the role of the Internet in radicalisation and recruitment as well as general technological skill within extremist groups. Few studies have considered this issue, especially among Far Right groups which have been identified as one of the top threats to public safety within the United States. This exploratory study addresses these issues using a qualitative analysis of a sample of threads from a technology-specific subforum of a widely used web forum in the white nationalist and white power movement. The findings demonstrate that the process of information sharing is distinct from that of more sophisticated deviant and criminal communities on-line, as users readily answer basic technological questions rather than discuss offensive attack techniques. The implications of this study for future research are examined in depth.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

The author seeks to highlight just how central this unofficial Islamic State ecosystem is to audiences inspired by the group and how the interplay between this ecosystem and youth requires reframing the challenge rather than doubling down on the same playbooks. This article will first present the connection between these young peoples’ use of social media and their attacks. The author will then seek to create the tie-in between the real-world threats posed by these youth-led plots and the unofficial digital ecosystem of the Islamic State, going beyond and expanding the author’s previous work into the ecosystem. 16 This tie-in will be followed by an analysis of the unofficial Islamic State ecosystem, expanding on what the author has already published about it, and will do so by diving into the outlets and tactics central to the ecosystem, and will conclude with recommendations for digital counterterrorism practitioners and researchers. The article will build on a broader report by the author on the Islamic State’s online activities that was published by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) on February 12, 2025.