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Recruit and threaten: hate speech detection within the pro-Wagner digital ecosystem on Telegram
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The PMC Wagner emerged as a central actor in the Russian power projection. This research consists of an evidence-based analysis to grasp the relationships within the pro-Wagner digital ecosystem. Through Socio-Semantic Network Analysis and hate-speech detection using a machine learning model, the study aims to map the PMC Wagner on Telegram and reconstruct its morphological characteristics. The study demonstrates that some intermediaries are essential in spreading propaganda due to a combination of their position and the violence of their discourse. Targeting the videos of the most relevant intermediaries is an efficient strategy to prevent other violent extremist actors.
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2025 |
Porrino, G., Borgonovo, F. and Arru, M. |
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Far-right transnationalism, digital affordances, and the specter of a new geopolitics
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Increasing attention paid to the far right commonly glosses over transnational activity, which reflects an imperial strategy to globalize far-right thinking and its attendant discursive and physical violence against others. Empirically, I focus on far-right transnational linkages among ordinary people (not state officials) between the United States and Europe and across Europe, and between India and the Indian diaspora especially in the United States to present variation in organizational strategies. Transnational far-right activity’s under-the-radar status is due to dated assumptions that presume transnational linkages occur on a top, down basis, and emanate from the formal political sphere, overlooking significant transnational material and immaterial linkages forged online by ordinary people who carry messaging through the far-right online ecosystem to affect political decision-making and societal discourses more generally. In the case of the far-right Indian diaspora, public-facing self-presentation aligns with Hinduism, which embraces peace and coexistence, despite the pursuit of the opposite, and this multicultural guise complements the bottom, up flow of far-right messaging to render Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, difficult to see. The far right throughout the world unites around casteism, the embrace of a fixed and “natural” societal hierarchy, and is fueled emotionally by the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Both casteism and replacement theory are adaptable to different contexts to enable unity across contexts despite internal diversity among far-right groups, notably in the United States, and diverse targets of hatred. Far-right unity-in-diversity obviates constraints on transnational activity based on nativism and enables different in organization and psychosocial and cultural practices.
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2025 |
Ettlinger, N. |
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The crime of digital promotion of terrorism through digital platforms and new media: a comparative study of Jordanian and Emirati laws
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This study addresses the crime of promoting terrorist acts through digital platforms, its dangers, and the legislative gaps in this context within the Jordanian Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023, comparing it with the corresponding legislative provisions in UAE. The problem at the core of this study lies in the insufficiency of the Jordanian Cybercrime Law to effectively address the crime of promoting terrorist acts through digital platforms, social media, new media, and smart applications, with a clear oversight despite its importance and necessity. The study concludes with several results and recommendations, which will be summarised here. Firstly, technical infrastructure issues: The technical infrastructure continues to face significant issues that allow terrorists to infiltrate, along with insufficient international cooperation between Jordan and other countries to address advanced electronic threats and ensure effective digital security. The study concludes with several recommendations, the most prominent being the need to add a specific provision to the Jordanian Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023 to penalise this crime.
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2025 |
Al-Rai, A.F., AlOmran, N.M. and Ansari, M.A.J.A. |
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Journal Article |
The Western Far Right and Digital Technology: Fuzzy Collectivity From Translocal Whiteness to Networked Metapolitics
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The rise of the far right has captured the attention of scholars across media studies, political science, and sociology. Digital technology played an important role in the rise of the far right and has deeply shaped this global movement. Focusing on research in Western societies (primarily Europe and North America), this review takes stock of how scholars in these three disciplines have studied the intersection of the far right and digital technology. The review introduces the problem of fuzzy collectivity to understand how scholars have made sense of the far right as an assemblage of increasingly complex networks of actors distributed across websites, alternative media, and platforms. Exploring solutions to the problem of fuzzy collectivity in the literature, the review proposes that far‐right engagement with digital technology should be conceptualized as a racial project engaging in metapolitics, a term used by far‐right ideologues that understands cultural movements to be prefigurative of political change. The review then explores the intersection of the far right and digital technology today, examining how it uses technology and the context of this use. The review then identifies pathways to reintegrate critical perspectives on racism in future research on the far right and digital technology.
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2025 |
Ganesh, B. |
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Far-right conspiracy groups on fringe platforms: A longitudinal analysis of radicalization dynamics on Telegram
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Societal crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, produce societal instability and create a fertile ground for radicalization. Extremists exploit such crises by distributing disinformation to amplify uncertainty and distrust among the public. Based on these developments, this study presents a longitudinal analysis of far-right communication on fringe platforms, demonstrating radicalization dynamics. Public Telegram communication of three movements active in Germany (QAnon, Identitarian Movement, Querdenken) was analyzed through a quantitative content analysis of 4500 messages posted to nine channels between March 2020 and February 2021. We study the movements’ discourse using several indicators of radicalization dynamics. The increasing prevalence of conspiracy narratives, anti-elitism, political activism, and support for violence indicate radicalization dynamics in these movements’ online communication. However, these dynamics varied within the movements. It can be concluded that, when studying radicalization dynamics online, it is crucial to not just focus on one single indicator, but consider longitudinal changes across several indicators, ideally comparing different movements.
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2022 |
Schulze, H., Hohner, J., Greipl, S., Girgnhuber, M., Desta, I. and Rieger, D. |
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Journal Article |
Too civil to care? How online hate speech against different social groups affects bystander intervention
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A large share of online users has already witnessed online hate speech. Because targets tend to interpret such bystanders’ lack of reaction as agreement with the hate speech, bystander intervention in online hate speech is crucial as it can help alleviate negative consequences. Despite evidence regarding online bystander intervention, however, whether bystanders evaluate online hate speech targeting different social groups as equally uncivil and, thereby, equally worthy of intervention remains largely unclear. Thus, we conducted an online experiment systematically varying the type of online hate speech as homophobia, racism, and misogyny. The results demonstrate that, although all three forms were perceived as uncivil, homophobic hate speech was perceived to be less uncivil than hate speech against women. Consequently, misogynist hate speech, compared to homophobic hate speech, increased feelings of personal responsibility and, in turn, boosted willingness to confront.
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2023 |
Obermaier, M., Schmid, U.K. and Rieger, D. |
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