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The purpose of this report is to raise awareness of how the so-called Islamic State (IS) uses digital propaganda to reach followers in the West. Although IS has suffered significant territorial losses, the digital battle is far from over. The big social media platforms are now effective in removing propaganda, but despite this, IS is always finding new ways of producing and spreading its messages. IS ability to adapt to an ever-changing digital landscape is likely to keep the organization alive by enabling communication between supporters worldwide. This report provides an introduction to IS propaganda from different perspectives: the specific language used by IS, the brand IS, the magazines produced by IS and women’s role in IS.

Lone-wolf terrorism is a threat to the security of modern society, as was tragically shown in Norway on July 22, 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik carried out two terrorist attacks that resulted in a total of 77 deaths. Since lone wolves are acting on their own, information about them cannot be collected using traditional police methods such as infiltration or wiretapping. One way to attempt to discover them before it is too late is to search for various ‘‘weak signals’’ on the Internet, such as digital traces left in extremist web forums. With the right tools and techniques, such traces can be collected and analyzed. In this work, we focus on tools and techniques that can be used to detect weak signals in the form of linguistic markers for potential lone wolf terrorism.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is the first terrorist organization to use the internet efficiently to spread its ideology and recruit followers in the region and abroad: but it is not an anomaly. In fact it is reflective of what we can expect to come from terrorist groups in the future. But technology is just one part of the problem. What will terrorist organizations in seven years’ time look like? Chatham House hosted Jared Cohen and a panel of guest speakers in January 2016 to explore these questions.

This article aims to address two questions: how does hate speech manifest on North American white supremacist websites; and is there a connection between online hate speech and hate crime? Firstly, hate speech is defined and the research methodology upon which the article is based is explained. The ways that ‘hate’ groups utilize the Internet and their purposes in doing so are then analysed, with the content and the functions of their websites as well as their agenda examined. Finally, the article explores the connection between hate speech and hate crime. I argue that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that speech can and does inspire crime. The article is based in the main on primary sources: a study of many ‘hate’ websites; and interviews and discussions with experts in the field.

Gatekeeping is defined as the work of third parties “who are able to disrupt misconduct by withholding their cooperation from wrongdoers.”1 Internet intermediaries need to be far more proactive as gatekeepers than they are now. Socially responsible measures can prevent the translation of violent thoughts into violent actions. Designated monitoring mechanisms can potentially prevent such unfortunate events. This Article suggests an approach that harnesses the strengths and capabilities of the public and private sectors in offering practical solutions to pressing problems. It proposes that internet intermediaries should fight stringently against terror and further argues that a responsible gatekeeping approach is good for business.

Part I defines terror. Next, Part II discusses the role of social networking sites in facilitating terror and argues that principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should dictate censorship of online terror. Part III shows that the great internet companies are slowly coming to understand that with great power comes great responsibility. Part IV then argues that internet intermediaries have a role to play beyond providing a platform to anyone with something to say. Social responsibility dictates some minimal standards of gatekeeping without which mayhem and destruction will ensue unabated. The policy of “anything goes” is self-defeating and irresponsible. Internet companies are expected to show readiness to work with governments to hinder terror activities. The industry should be encouraged to be proactive.

This article presents a systematic linguistic approach to mapping gender differences in the formulation and practice of right-wing ideology. We conducted a set of content- and text-analytical analyses on a 52,760 words corpus from a female-only subforum, dubbed LOTIES (Ladies of the Invisible Empire), compared with a matching corpus of 1.793 million words from a male-only subforum of the Ku Klux Klan’s primary website. Using a combination of computational and noncomputational linguistic methods, we show that the wholesome and avowedly prosocial discourse of the female forum is a gateway to Klan activity and, ultimately, to the Klan’s ideology through a fear-based “all means are necessary” mindset and violent sentiments. The findings also suggest that the female forum’s porousness and emphasis on inclusion and homogeneity may have facilitated the spontaneous “mutation” of the traditional KKK ideology into a generic Far-Right ideology that enjoys broad consensus. Rhetorically, this generic right-wing ideology downplays overt racial and violent elements and eschews theological controversies by relating to Christianity instrumentally as a cultural heritage rather than a religion in the metaphysical sense of the word.