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We welcome the increased focus amongst policymakers on the role played by content personalisation and other algorithmic recommendation systems on online platforms. Such scrutiny is warranted. Terrorist groups exploit platforms that make use of recommendation algorithms, and there are examples of individuals coming into contact with terrorist and violent extremist content via platforms using content personalisation. However, we are concerned that the current debate is, on a policy level, based on an incomplete understanding of terrorist use of the internet, and that a focus on content personalisation is a distraction from more important steps that should be taken to tackle terrorist use of the internet.

With this Handbook we aim to provide a comprehensive and accessible resource for tech platforms to improve their understanding of legislative developments and key trends in online regulation. All resources included in the Handbook can be accessed via our relaunched Knowledge Sharing Platform.

The objective of this report is to provide strategic guidance to tech companies, government policy makers, and solution providers in order to increase and improve investment into effective technical approaches that support platforms in tackling the terrorist use of internet services while respecting human rights. While stopping short of providing a detailed roadmap for development, this report aims to provide the overall framework for prioritization of effort given the complex nature of the terrorist threat and the challenges faced by tech companies in adapting to this threat and increased regulatory pressures from governments.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Regulation on Terrorist Content Online (TCO) are both legislative measures enacted by the European Union (EU) which are aimed at regulating digital
services and combating the spread of harmful content online. While both measures are concerned with reducing online harm in the EU, they differ in the nature and extent of: the harm they purport to mitigate; the burden of compliance imposed on platforms undertaking relevant activities; and on the activities which bring platforms in scope. In its concern with a more specific and egregious form of online harm, the TCO generally imposes more stringent requirements on tech platforms and is expressed in more mandatory terms. However, this is not uniformly the case across all the areas which are common to both the DSA and the TCO. In the matter of crisis response in particular, the DSA’s requirements are more exacting and potentially more onerous than those provided by the TCO.

Internettet præsenteres ofte som et farligt redskab i hænderne på terrorister. Det er dog ikke nødvendigvis sandheden. Artiklen trækker på indsigter fra studier af sunniekstremistiske grupper, Anders B. Breivik og Anonymous og diskuterer terroristers anvendelse af internettet i organiseringen og udførelsen af terrorisme. Jeg vil argumentere for, at det anarkiske og anonyme internet fører mistillid og fragmentering med sig, hvilket gør det sværere for grupper at opretholde en fælles strategi og det fælles fjendebillede. Artiklen styrker derfor fortællingen om, at det hovedsageligt er ekskluderede og socialt marginaliserede enspændere, der ender med at planlægge voldshandlinger i isolation bag computerskærmen. I forlængelse heraf vil jeg pege på, at hovedparten af potentielle terrorister drages af fysisk interaktion,
våben og eksplosioner – og ikke udviklingen af komplekse cybervåben.

The increasing pervasiveness of social media has been matched by growing concerns regarding their potential impact on democracy and public debate. While some theorists have claimed that ICTs and social media would bring about a new independent public sphere and increase exposure to political divergence, others have warned that they would lead to polarization, through the formation of echo chambers. The issue of social media echo chambers is both crucial and widely debated. This article attempts to provide a comprehensive account of the scientific literature on this issue, highlighting the different approaches, their similarities, differences, benefits and drawbacks, and offering a consolidated and critical perspective that can hopefully support future research in this area. Concretely, it presents the results of a systematic review of 55 studies investigating the existence of echo chambers on social media, identifying patterns across their foci, methods and findings, and shedding light on the contradictory nature of the literature. We found that the results of research on this issue seem largely influenced by methodological and data collection choices. Indeed, articles that found clear evidence of echo chambers on social media were all based on digital trace data, while those that found no evidence were all based on self-reported data. Future studies should take into account the potential biases of the different approaches and the significant potential of combining self-reported data with digital trace data.