Online Library

The growth of the online ‘manosphere’ has raised significant concerns regarding the movement’s highly misogynistic discourses and related lone offender attacks perpetrated by incels. This article employs a digital ethnography approach to examine r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill, two forums dedicated to assisting individuals leave the manosphere. Utilizing a gendered perspective, this study delves into narratives from these forums to engage with theoretical debates on the conceptual need to recognize masculine agency. Key focus areas include exploring the radicalization and deradicalization processes, along with examination of narratives from individuals who use these subreddits to divert from joining the manosphere.

Online extremism remains a persistent problem despite the best efforts of governments, tech companies and civil society. Digital technologies can induce group polarization to promote extremism and cause substantial changes to extremism (e.g., create new forms of extremism, types of threats or radicalization approaches). Current methods to counter extremism induce undesirable side‐effects (e.g., ostracize minorities, inadvertently promote extremism) or do not leverage the full potential of digital technologies. Extremism experts recognize the need for researchers from other disciplines, like information systems, to contribute their technical expertise for understanding and countering online extremism. This article aims to introduce the field of information systems to the issue of online extremism. Information systems scholars address technology‐related societal issues from a sociotechnical perspective. The sociotechnical perspective describes systems through a series of interactions between social (structure, people) and technical components (physical system, task). We apply the sociotechnical perspective to (1) summarize the current state‐of‐the‐art knowledge of 222 articles in a systematic multi‐disciplinary literature review and (2) propose specific research questions that address two questions (How do digital technologies augment extremism? How can we successfully counter online extremism?).

This study sheds light on the emerging threat of terrorists, particularly Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations, leveraging online crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies. The recent events of October 7, 2023, highlight the pressing nature of this issue. A systematic case analysis reveals the sophisticated exploitation of digital finance for discreet resource accumulation, circumventing traditional oversight. The findings expose unidentified typologies and funding pathways, significantly bolstering terrorist resilience against interdiction efforts. This study provides vital knowledge to catalyze policy adaptations at this critical juncture by probing real-world implications that still lack coordinated responses. Ultimately, this study raises awareness about evolving asymmetries and underscores the importance of closing gaps in vigilance, necessitating academic and policy attention to inform agile, ethical countermeasures before technological vulnerabilities widen further.

This article, which combines social network analysis and open-source intelligence, discusses the functions, structure, and evolution of al-Qaeda’s (AQ) information ecosystem on the surface web in the second half of 2023. It argues that despite preferring Rocket Chat as a primary communication channel, this terrorist organisation developed an extensive and robust propaganda distribution network detectable from the surface web. The pro-AQ ecosystem on this Internet communication layer relied primarily on standalone websites, message boards, and blogs, interconnected with a broad range of file-sharing services and channels on encrypted communication apps. Aside from them, the group manifested limited activity on mainstream social media. In the second half of 2023, the group demonstrated resilience to content takedowns, as most of its key domains used to disseminate propaganda continued to be active under the same or changed URLs. This study shows that, in contrast to the Islamic State, alQaeda’s information ecosystem was largely decentralised, which was primarily caused by the differentiated approaches of its branches to maintaining their presence in this environment. The lack of centralisation of AQ’s propaganda distribution network may be considered both an advantage and a disadvantage. On the one hand, it potentially increases its resilience to content takedowns. On the other hand, however, it also demonstrates a lack of coordination between branches, which decreases their media operations’ potential efficiency and reach.

This book explores the social forces among and between online aggressors that affect the expression and perpetration of online hate. Its chapters illustrate how patterns of interactive social behavior reinforce, magnify, or modify this expression. It also considers the characteristics of social media that facilitate social interactions that promote hate and facilitate relationships among haters. Bringing together a range of international experts and covering an array of themes, including woman abuse, antisemitism, pornography, radicalization, and extreme political youth movements, this book examines the specific social factors and processes that facilitate these forms of hate and proposes new approaches for explaining them.

Cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, and authoritative, this book will be of interest to sociologists, criminologists, and scholars of media, communication, and computational social science alike, as well as those engaged with hate crime, hate speech, social media, and online social networks.

VOX-Pol Blog post.