Online Library

Social media’s role in the spread and evolution of extremism is a focus of intense study. Online extremists have been involved in the spread of online hate, mis/disinformation, and real-world violence. However, the overwhelming majority of existing work has focused on right-wing extremism. In this paper, we perform a first of its kind large-scale, data-driven study exploring left-wing extremism. We focus on “tankies,” a left-wing community that first arose in the 1950s in support of hardline actions of the USSR and has evolved to support what they call “actually existing socialist countries,” e.g., CCP run China, the USSR, former soviet countries, and North Korea. We collect 1.3M posts from 53K authors from tankies subreddits, and explore the position of tankies within the broader far-left community on Reddit. Among other things, we find that tankies are clearly on the periphery of the larger far-left community. When examining the contents of posts, we find misalignments and conceptual homomorphisms that confirm the description of tankies in the theoretical work. We also discover that tankies focus more on state-level political events rather than social issues in comparison to other far-left communities. Finally, we show that tankies exhibit some of the same worrying behaviors as right-wing extremists, e.g., relatively high toxicity and an organized response to deplatforming events.

This systematic review seeks to position online radicalisation within whole system frameworks incorporating individual, family, community and wider structural influences, whilst reporting evidence of public mental health approaches for individuals engaging in radical online content. Methods: Authors searched Medline (via Ovid), PsycInfo (via Ebscohost) and Web of Science (Core Collection), with the use of Boolean operators across ‘extremism’, ‘online content’, and ‘intervention’. Results: Following assessment of full text, all retrieved papers had to be excluded. Results from six excluded articles which did not fit inclusion criteria but identified theoretical relationships between all three elements of online extremism, psychological outcomes, and intervention strategy, were discussed. Authors found no articles outlining public mental health approaches to specifically online radicalisation. Conclusions: There is an immediate need for further research in this field given the increase in different factions of radicalised beliefs resulting from online, particularly social media, usage.

This paper introduces the concept of “imagined extremist communities,” a term that encapsulates the unique social landscape where right-wing lone actors, despite not being affiliated with organised groups, partake in a form of communal interaction. By examining the cases of Anders Behring Breivik, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, and Philip Manshaus, this paper illuminates how group-based and lone actors are more alike than what is conventionally expressed in existing research. Although lone actors are not subject to an external command like group-based actors are, the imagined extremist community functions as a “group” for lone actors and is, for all practical purposes, a corresponding alternative to a terror cell. During the radicalisation process, these individuals seek and turn to the imagined extremist community, enabling them to form a sense of belonging and identification and underscoring that these actors, although conventionally labelled as “lone,” are immersed in an alternative culture that nurtures their ideas and sustains their extremist ideology. This becomes particularly evident through their cognitive radicalisation, a process amplified by their psychological predispositions. The concept of the imagined extremist community elucidates how lone actors, especially those embracing right-wing ideologies, are subject to radical influences. Their conservative traits and psychological dispositions make them particularly receptive to the appeal of such communities.

From early Bulletin Board Systems adopted by neo-Nazis to the Islamic State’s more recent prolific use of social media platforms, an aspect of terrorism studies that is generally agreed upon is that violent extremists are often early adopters of emerging technologies. These groups, organisations, and networks have demonstrated innovative uses of these digital spaces, harnessed for recruitment, coordination, community building, attack planning, propaganda dissemination, and other purposes. Alongside studying these phenomena, it is important to explore where future trends lie; particularly as findings and recommendations can ensure that relevant stakeholders are aware of and can begin to prepare for emerging threats. This paper considers the potential exploitation of Web 3.0, specifically the metaverse, by violent extremists and explores conceivable opportunities to undertake nefarious activities within these spaces. There is a particular focus on the gamification of violent extremism in the metaverse, an issue—i.e. the gamification of violent extremism—that is causing increasing concern to terrorism practitioners more generally. Although it is difficult to predict exactly how violent extremists will utilise, exploit, and misuse the metaverse and related technologies due to the early stage of its conceptualisation and development, it is possible to develop hypotheses based on past trends and current examples demonstrating manipulation of online spaces that resemble aspects of the metaverse. In fact, aspects of the gamification of violent extremism in the metaverse may well have distinct overlaps with current threats, but simply utilise emerging technologies and take place within developing and more immersive online spaces.

The metaverse is currently the leading hype in the digital world because of its seemingly infinite potential and possibilities. Large corporations are drawn to the metaverse because it appears as the cutting edge of digital and technological developments. The metaverse is presented by communication technology companies as the next Internet, a leap towards a universe of boundless, interconnected virtual communities. However, there are many potential risks and challenges that the metaverse raises, including technical, legal, security, business, tax, privacy, security, and users’ well-being and safety (among many others). Cyber-savvy terrorists have been highly resourceful in adapting and applying online platforms and have taken advantage of every new development, platform, and application. Based on their past record, it is reasonable to assume that the metaverse is a new dimension that terrorists and violent extremists are poised to study, examine, and possibly utilise. This research note explores some potential uses of the metaverse by terrorists and suggests preemptive measures to minimise the risks of them doing so. If the advancement of the metaverse or similar developments is inevitable, we should consider risks and abuses and think more carefully about them when moving forward.

The United States is facing an ongoing threat of political violence due to widespread anti-government sentiment that has proliferated across social media platforms. Most saliently, these violent sentiments manifested in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol during the certification of the 2020 general election. This research extends prior work on the online mobilisation to offline violence by analysing the text of online discussions leading up to the January 6 attack. We focus this examination on two central questions. First, what are the key themes and topics discussed within and across two social media platforms? Second, how did these themes and topics change over time? Focusing on two far-right anti-government online communities, we explore how support for political violence, disinformation, and electoral outcomes emerge and change over time. Our findings provide insight into possible strategies to counteract misinformation and the temporal trajectory of escalating violent sentiment within and across online communities. Further, this study highlights the importance of collecting data prospectively and demonstrates the value of automated content analysis and text data in understanding anti-government extremist sentiments.