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Community Action for Preventing Extremism (CAPE) is Australia’s only not-for-profit counter-extremism project focused specifically on preventing a growth in right-wing extremism. By disseminating counter-narratives to extremism through the exitwhitepower.com website and directly engaging with individuals at-risk via social media, CAPE seeks to sow a seed of doubt that will reduce individual’s vulnerability to involvement in the far-right. This paper will outline CAPE’s practitioner experience in developing online interventions to challenge far-right narratives and the advantages of using this method of engagement. The paper will also outline distinctions between traditional white supremacist far-right groups and the increasingly active anti-Muslim groups, which create challenges for CAPE’s work in countering far-right online activity.

This study explores how the internet is used by individuals in the process of their radicalisation. It is based on primary data drawn from a variety of sources: evidence presented at trial, computer registries of convicted terrorists, interviews with convicted terrorists and extremists, as well as police senior investigative officers responsible for terrorist investigations.

This paper provides a broad summary of our current understanding of the role of the Internet in relation to extremist and terrorist networks. It covers the role of the Internet in radicalisation; the use of new technologies by extremists looking to organize and/or use violence, whether in a group or alone (including how this is changing the presence of women online); the ways in which the internet has been used as an operation tool by terrorists (to recruit, train, coordinate and communicate); and the range of policy responses, including the emerging priority area of counter-narratives to take on the dominant messages of extremists and challenge their legitimacy.

Online radical Islam is a topic widely studied by scholars and notoriously discussed among non- experts as well (; ; ). Because of its intrinsic characteristics (i.e. accessibility, anonymity, or users’ identity dissimulation), the internet has always been a useful tool for propagandists of Islamic fundamentalism (; ; ). However, in the last decade, studies have questioned the real importance and magnitude of Islamic radicalization online (). In fact, while scholars were focused on observing digital Islamic radicalization, a galaxy of new forms of extremism was growing online (; ) that no longer made Islam an exceptional case study. Today, Muslim people are one of the groups most aggressively targeted by extremist, intolerant, violent, and radical discourses (; Amnesty International, ). Anti-Muslim hate speech has spread online throughout Europe and the United States, reinforced by the propaganda and political discourse of populist right-wing parties (; ). This paper introduces some large-scale action-research projects developed in Europe and Italy in the last three years (2016–2019) and aims to reconstruct the most updated Islamophobia state of the art in terms of numbers, characteristics, and phenomenology from the offline to the online context.

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This chapter examines Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) and its role in the privatized governance of online media within the broader context of transnational law enforcement and European counter-terrorism policy. Established in 2015, the EU IRU monitors online content and recommends takedowns to hosting platforms based on breaches of terms of service, not legal violations. By analyzing the discursive practices of the EU IRU, this chapter seeks to understand the (in)security dynamics of online radicalization and assess associated human rights concerns. The core question addressed is how Europol frames radicalization and Internet content. The chapter situates the EU IRU within the wider discourse on counter-radicalization, arguing for a deeper understanding of radicalization as perceived by professionals in the field. A detailed policy analysis highlights the unit’s referral and takedown activities, scrutinizing Europol’s framing of technology as a security issue and radicalization as a problem exacerbated by online communication. The study reveals significant issues such as over-blocking, lack of due process, and absence of recourse for affected users, emphasizing the ethical and human rights implications of private companies acting as arbiters of speech. The conclusion critiques Europol’s approach, noting its inconsistency and inefficacy, and underscores the necessity of transparent and judicially overseen content regulation. This chapter calls for a re-evaluation of current counter-radicalization strategies, advocating for more holistic approaches that balance security needs with fundamental rights and democratic accountability.