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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.

By reviewing studies of how today’s terrorist and extremist groups operate on social media in conjunction with an overview of U.S. government regulation of terrorist content online, this report finds that stricter U.S. regulation of social media providers may not be the most effective method of combating online terrorist and extremist content.

This report examines the patchwork of online text‑based instant messaging applications preferred by jihadist and far‑right extremist groups, with a focus on charting their technical affordances and their host companies’ stances on user privacy, security and regulation. To this end, the report analyses six online messaging services (BCM, Gab Chat, Hoop Messenger, Riot.im, Rocket.Chat and TamTam) that have been or may be used in conjunction with Telegram by extremist groups.

Social media platforms, such as Instagram, are regularly misused for spreading covert (Islamic) extremist propaganda. Affect and emotion are central tools used in extremist propaganda, but there is little research into the combined employment of different social media elements, such as hashtags, visuals, and texts, in the context of propaganda. This study contributes to closing this gap. Using the German group Generation Islam as a case study, we examined the group’s Instagram activity (N = 1,187 posts) over the course of 2 years. To reflect the platform users’ logic, we (a) examined affect in hashtag networks in which users can come across propagandistic content, (b) employed deep learning to examine the emotional valence transmitted in the visuals, and (c) used automated linguistic analysis to describe collective action cues contained within the texts. The results are novel, as they provide nuanced insights into extremist propaganda’s employment of affect and emotions across Instagram’s affordances.

This study examines lone wolf attacks, distinct aspect of terrorism, through contemporary dynamics. Broadly, lone wolves are defined as individuals who experience their radicalization processes independently and are often associated with self-radicalization. However, it would be inaccurate to assume that lone wolves are entirely isolated from social processes. Although they do not act on directives when planning and carrying out their attacks, it is essential to recognize their interactions with others. In particular, the relationships they establish during their radicalization process, alongside personal motivations, are significant. The study explores the idea that traditional group dynamics crucial to radicalization are, for lone wolves, facilitated through online environments. The argument that online platforms serve as a socialization milieu for radicalization forms the core contribution and purpose of this research. Accordingly, the study analyzes how online activities influence the radicalization of lone wolves and evaluates strategies to counteract this phenomenon. Lastly, it engages in a discussion on the relationship between lone wolf terrorism and traditional organizational terrorism.

The undersigned human rights and digital rights organizations call on the participants of the trialogue meeting on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of Council on preventing/addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online to comply with the Charter of Fundamental Rights and discuss further amendments that fully respect freedom of expression, freedom of information and personal data protection of internet users.