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Popular tech companies—Google, Facebook,
Twitter, and others—have strongly protected
free speech online, a policy widely associated
with the legal norms of the United States.
American tech companies, however, operate
globally, and their platforms are subject to regulation
by the European Union, whose member states offer less
protection to expression than does the United States.
European regulators are pressuring tech companies to
control and suppress extreme speech. The regulators’
clear warning is that, if the companies do not comply
“voluntarily,” they will face harsher laws and potential
liability. This regulatory effort runs the risk of censorship
creep, whereby a wide array of protected speech, including
political criticism and newsworthy content, may end up
being removed from online platforms on a global scale.

This systematic review explores the utilization of crowdsourcing for geoinformation in enhancing awareness and mitigating terrorism-related disasters. Out of 519 studies identified in the database search, 108 were deemed eligible for analysis. We focused on articles employing various forms of crowdsourcing platforms, such as Twitter (now known as X), Facebook, and Telegram, across three distinct phases of terrorism-related disasters: monitoring and detection, onset, and post-incident analysis. Notably, we placed particular emphasis on the integration of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in studying crowdsourced terrorism geoinformation to assess the current state of research and propose future directions. The findings revealed that Twitter emerged as the predominant crowdsourcing platform for terrorism-related information. Despite the prevalence of natural language processing for data mining, the majority of studies did not incorporate ML algorithms in their analyses. This preference for qualitative research methods can be attributed to the multifaceted nature of terrorism, spanning security, governance, politics, religion, and law. Our advocacy is for increased studies from the domains of geography, earth observation, and big data. Simultaneously, we encourage advancements in existing ML algorithms to enhance the accurate real-time detection of planned and onset terrorism disasters.

Current literature on online criminal and deviant groups recognises the role of online forums in the transfer of knowledge and socialisation of members, but current research lacks insight on the evolution and convergence of these groups. One area of concerns is how different aspects of these ideologies, most notably misogyny, anti-semitism and racism, are shared and developed between communities making up the manosphere and those dedicated to far-right themes. Current research has found overlaps in memberships across these two online groups, with growing evidence showing members’ linkage to online harassment and offline violent incidents (Farrell et al., ; Regehr,). To develop appropriate interventions to prevent such violent events, this research attempts to elucidate the different elements of the ideologies expressed in online communities known collectively as the “manosphere”, by analysing the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre’s ExtremeBB dataset. This database includes approximately 46 million posts made by more than 315 thousand registered active members on 12 different online extremist forums promoting misogyny and far-right extremism. To understand the interaction between far-right extremism and misogyny, we perform a qualitative analysis of a selection of posts already categorised by topic. Preliminary analyses show support for the following aspects: (a) similarities in radicalisation mechanisms, and (b) overlaps in the discourse on race and gender. These similarities provide potential gateways for previously isolated members to venture beyond their current association, suggesting the further adoption of extreme ideologies. Such a process, known as radicalisation, is highly correlated with extremism and terrorism (Borum, ; McCauley & Moskalenko,). Findings from this research will allow for more precise interventions.

Current literature on online criminal and deviant groups recognizes the role of online forums in the transfer of knowledge and socialization of members, but debates on the role of the Internet in the socialization and radicalization processes in the context of online extremist groups. This study contributes to the discussion by examining online radicalization process through the use of social learning theory and social network analysis. This innovation allows for assessment on the impact of online interactions with forum members on radicalization process. Findings found strong support of differential association and differential reinforcement, but showed the possibility of other mechanisms, such as self-radicalization, at play. Findings from the study highlight the need to for theory integration, the inclusion of online peer association, and replication to address the complex phenomenon of online radicalization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of community question answering sites (CQAs) on the topic of terrorism. Three research questions are investigated: what are the dominant themes reflected in terrorism-related questions? How do answer characteristics vary with question themes? How does users’ anonymity relate to question themes and answer characteristics?

Data include 300 questions that attracted 2,194 answers on the community question answering Yahoo! Answers. Content analysis was employed.

The questions reflected the community’s information needs ranging from the life of extremists to counter-terrorism policies. Answers were laden with negative emotions reflecting hate speech and Islamophobia, making claims that were rarely verifiable. Users who posted sensitive content generally remained anonymous.

This paper raises awareness of how CQAs are used to exchange information about sensitive topics such as terrorism. It calls for governments and law enforcement agencies to collaborate with major social media companies to develop a process for cross-platform blacklisting of users and content, as well as identifying those who are vulnerable.

Theoretically, it contributes to the academic discourse on terrorism in CQAs by exploring the type of questions asked, and the sort of answers they attract. Methodologically, the paper serves to enrich the literature around terrorism and social media that has hitherto mostly drawn data from Facebook and Twitter.

VOX-Pol Blog post.