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In the context of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, President Donald Trump’s use of Twitter to connect with followers and supporters created unprecedented access to Trump’s online political campaign. In using the campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” (or its acronym “MAGA”), Trump communicatively organized and controlled media systems by offering his followers an opportunity to connect with his campaign through the discursive hashtag. In effect, the strategic use of these networks over time communicatively constituted an effective and winning political organization; however, Trump’s political organization was not without connections to far-right and hate groups that coalesced in and around the hashtag. Semantic network analyses uncovered how the textual nature of #MAGA organized connections between hashtags, and, in doing so, exposed connections to overtly White supremacist groups within the United States and the United Kingdom throughout late November 2016. Cluster analyses further uncovered semantic connections to White supremacist and White nationalist groups throughout the hashtag networks connected to the central slogan of Trump’s presidential campaign. Theoretically, these findings contribute to the ways in which hashtag networks show how Trump’s support developed and united around particular organizing processes and White nationalist language, and provide insights into how these networks discursively create and connect White supremacists’ organizations to Trump’s campaign.

This paper provides recommendations for what government and social media companies can do in the context of Jammu and Kashmir’s developing online theatre of both potential radicalisation and recruitment

Terrorist organizations have consistently demonstrated their ability to evolve alongside society’s ever-advancing technological landscape. Rather than relying on dependable tactics tested over several decades, terrorist organizations’ willingness to innovate has led to expanded capabilities to inflict harm upon society. The most significant technological advancement of the twenty first century is artificial intelligence (AI). Although AI will be a catalyst for societal transformation, nefarious actors will undoubtedly attempt to leverage the technology’s vast capabilities for malicious purposes, especially terrorist organizations. However, while prior research has systematically reviewed the literature to establish the state-of-the-art in AI-assisted counterterrorism, there is a noticeable knowledge gap surrounding terrorists’ use of AI in their operations. The present study employs a systematic literature review methodology to comprehensively compile and review existing scientific knowledge on the convergence of AI and terrorism. A thorough primary search across five databases and a secondary search in Google Scholar yielded twenty-eight sources meeting our inclusion criteria. The review reveals several areas where AI will likely augment current terrorist activities, including propaganda and recruitment, offensive cyber operations, attack tactics and strategies, and various day-to-day undertakings. This systematic literature review elucidates these areas of technological advancement, provides implications for policy and practice, and offers directions for future research in this critical field.

Given the proliferation of violent extremist content online in recent years, developing effective counter-narratives – messages that offer a positive alternative to extremist propaganda, or deconstruct or delegitimise extremist narratives and challenge extremist ideologies – is an increasingly necessary alternative to online censorship. This Handbook, funded by Public Safety Canada through the Kanishka Project, was created by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) to help anyone looking to proactively respond to extremist propaganda with counter-narrative campaigns, and is intended as a beginner’s guide for those with little or no previous experience of counter-narrative campaigning. It takes readers through the main stages of creating, launching and evaluating an effective c ounter-narrative c ampaign. I t c an a lso b e u sed a longside I SD’s freely available online Counter-narrative Toolkit, which can be found at www.counternarratives.org. Our advice is based on ISD’s experiences in creating, running and evaluating in-house campaigns such as Extreme Dialogue, and collaborating with independent content-creators, from civil society and NGO campaigners to young activists, to amplify their counter-narrative messages through training, networking and campaign support. This Handbook therefore focuses on civil-society, youth or NGO-led online counternarrative campaigns.

This study addresses the crime of promoting terrorist acts through digital platforms, its dangers, and the legislative gaps in this context within the Jordanian Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023, comparing it with the corresponding legislative provisions in UAE. The problem at the core of this study lies in the insufficiency of the Jordanian Cybercrime Law to effectively address the crime of promoting terrorist acts through digital platforms, social media, new media, and smart applications, with a clear oversight despite its importance and necessity. The study concludes with several results and recommendations, which will be summarised here. Firstly, technical infrastructure issues: The technical infrastructure continues to face significant issues that allow terrorists to infiltrate, along with insufficient international cooperation between Jordan and other countries to address advanced electronic threats and ensure effective digital security. The study concludes with several recommendations, the most prominent being the need to add a specific provision to the Jordanian Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023 to penalise this crime.