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Radical, terroristic organizations pose threats to business, government, and society. The ubiquity of the modern Web and its participatory architecture have enabled such groups to become full-blown online propaganda machines. Today, radicalization that eventually leads to acts of terror occurs predominantly on the Web. Radical ideologies can be spread, in many cases unchecked, by malicious actors who take advantage of the frequently lax surveillance apparatus of online social platforms. This paper argues that an overlooked, essential first step to interdicting this threat is the large-scale, structured collection of knowledge regarding these ideologies in open machine-readable formats. Using Collective Action Framing Theory, this study develops a trio of design artifacts: the Terror Beliefs Ontology (TBO) for a general ontology of terroristic ideology, the Frame Discovery System (FDS) to automatically populate this ontology, and the Frame Resonance Detection System (FRDS) to accurately identify online personae or postings that espouse a radical ideology known to TBO. With a comprehensive evaluation, we demonstrate how these three instantiated design artifacts, working in concert, can automatically construct a knowledge representation of heterogeneous terroristic ideologies and accurately detect radical online postings. We offer the first design that can assign Web text to any radical ideology without the use of a hand-labeled training corpus.

The previous chapter makes it clear that the Internet and communications technology have become important frontiers in the struggle against gender-based violence. Discussing, in particular, the everyday lived experience of violence against women online, it illustrated the extent to which online gender-based violence has been normalized as well as the direct linkages between online violence, offline harms, and intertwined structures of oppression based on patriarchy, Global North–South divides, and other social hierarchies. While Chapter 3 offered insight primarily into the experiences of domestic and interpersonal violence facilitated through online platforms, it left unaddressed the issue of how gender-based violence can be deployed by extremists using technology to further their own ends. The present chapter explores how online extremist violence both deploys gender discourse and uses gendered labour to further its end. This analysis looks primarily at the role of social media, but also addresses the role of messaging apps, decentralized platforms, and other related technologies.

The paper explores the role of social media on positive youth development and engagement towards peacebuilding in Pakistan. In particular, it recognizes the role of youth within the liberal peace process, hence, sustainably aiding peacebuilding efforts. The paper argues that within developing democracies, media and youth can create an environment to promote dialogue and collaborative problem-solving techniques. Furthermore, it explicates how extreme ideologists exploit social media; hence, negatively influencing the youth. With regards, the paper discusses several aspects of social media that can significantly contribute towards countering violent extremism and related narratives. Such an understanding enables us to classify the potential role of social media in involving youth in contextualized peacebuilding efforts.

This paper explores the problem of deception in online terrorism research. While conducting research into the growing phenomenon of female migration to Islamic State-held territory by Western females, we began following a Twitter account exhibiting suspicious activity. The account owner–believed to be a Canadian teenage female–indicated interest in learning more about joining the IS. We tracked this account for three weeks in order to discover more information about its activities and thus to develop a set of key indicators that might help predict future migration risk. We subsequently learned it was a fake account (‘sock puppet’) established to fool IS recruiters. The operation of such ruses and the problems they create is discussed here.

The old military aphorism that the enemy gets a vote is oft forgotten in both Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. This cliche is worth keeping in mind as Congress debates adjustments to Section 230 (230) of the Communications Decency Act. For starters, Silicon Valleys persistent inability to ground products in the knowledge that some users will deliberately abuse them, and the unsurprising abuse that results, motivates many in Washington to adjust 230s liability protections. But policymakers, intent on taming platforms, must not inadvertently empower the real dangerous actorsterrorists, child predators, hate groupswho will abuse any technology and any legal recourse created by adjustments to 230.