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This report analyses public-private relations between the European (in particular, French) authorities and Facebook, Google (YouTube) and Twitter on the subject of terrorist usage of social media between 2015 and 2019. In a qualitative approach, interview material is mobilised to investigate lived experiences of this early cooperation, focusing on how stakeholders defined and negotiated their involvement, navigated power relations and pursued strategies to establish working relations without abandoning their respective preferences. The report finds that, although cultural fault lines influenced the stakeholders’ perceptions of roles, enthusiasm for ‘automated’ moderation was shared across the public-private boundary, justifying the development of what can be called state-platform diplomacy.

People use social media platforms to chat, search, and share information, express their opinions, and connect with others. But these platforms also facilitate the posting of divisive, harmful, and hateful messages, targeting groups and individuals, based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or political views.Hate content is not only a problem on the Internet, but also on traditional media,especially in places where the Internet is not widely available or in rural areas.Despite growing awareness of the harms that exposure to hate can cause, especially to victims, there is no clear consensus in the literature on what specific impacts this exposure, as bystanders, produces on individuals, groups, and the population at large. Most of the existing research has focused on analyzing the content and the extent of the problem. More research in this area is needed to develop better intervention programs that are adapted to the current reality of hate. The objective of this review is to synthesize the empirical evidence on how media exposure to hate affects or is associated with various outcomes for individuals and groups.

This essay contributes to a materialist theory of media populism by criticizing America First, an influential U.S. American reactionary live-stream hosted by Nicholas J. Fuentes, and its Groyper fans. Fuentes has expanded his online presence despite the deplatforming, or administrative suspension, of his social media accounts on account of his antisemitic, antiblack, and sexist hate speech. To understand the ideological ramifications of deplatforming populist influencers, I read clips from America First into the economic and infrastructural context of U.S. far-right subcultures. I argue that media studies must attend to bourgeois digital platform management as a technology which reproduces the undemocratic conditions of racial capitalism. The deplatforming of Fuentes facilitates the ascent of reactionary populism by reinforcing possessive individualism, or a white masculine fantasy of unmediated access to the public. “The people” of populism functions as media whose lost presence naturalizes sovereign violence against marginalized people. Media populism illustrates the need for to move beyond the dichotomy of “mainstream” versus “fringe” platforms to consider the material affinity of bourgeois digital publics and white nationalist provocation.

This thesis examines how extremist far-right recruiters communicate online to support Australia’s countering violent extremism (CVE) early detection efforts. It argues that current strategies—while sometimes effective—overlook online spaces as primary recruitment sites, focus too heavily on detecting already-radicalised individuals, and rely on oversimplified root-cause models. Further, it contends that detection is hindered by representational biases portraying the far right as non-terrorist and unified, leaving many groups free to operate. Using an interdisciplinary approach combining media logic with Critical Terrorism and Security Studies, the research develops an original “Extremism Typology,” blending Social Identity Theory and Identity Theory to analyse how social, cultural, and collective identities shape recruitment discourse. Applying multimodal discourse analysis to far-right websites, it conceptualises recruiters as “lighthouses” guiding audiences through a “digital fog” of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. It concludes that far-right groups are not unified and that effective early detection must treat them as distinct entities while recognising online environments as central to recruitment.

In the aftermath of 9/11 security agencies augmented their counterterrorism (CT) apparatuses with advanced analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their ability to identify and neutralize terrorists. Under this regime, humans remained the central actors, tasked with understanding information and crafting a response. The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) changes this equation. GenAI’s ability to mimic humanity’s reasoning skills augurs a world where machines assume responsibility for most CT activities. This possibility raises fears of machines outside of human control. These fears are currently unfounded, and to the extent that they’re real, they must be weighed against the ability to reduce the victims of terrorism. As this world forms, what will matter more is decision-makers’ understanding of AI/ML outputs for counterterrorism, as they will have to make strategic choices around a series of ethical and policy choices that are inherently human. This article explores this subject more in-depth, reviewing the evolution of AI/ML and its impact on different CT domains, exploring the strategic dimensions of AI/ML, and concluding with a series of policy recommendations.

Terrorist organizations have consistently demonstrated their ability to evolve alongside society’s ever-advancing technological landscape. Rather than relying on dependable tactics tested over several decades, terrorist organizations’ willingness to innovate has led to expanded capabilities to inflict harm upon society. The most significant technological advancement of the twenty first century is artificial intelligence (AI). Although AI will be a catalyst for societal transformation, nefarious actors will undoubtedly attempt to leverage the technology’s vast capabilities for malicious purposes, especially terrorist organizations. However, while prior research has systematically reviewed the literature to establish the state-of-the-art in AI-assisted counterterrorism, there is a noticeable knowledge gap surrounding terrorists’ use of AI in their operations. The present study employs a systematic literature review methodology to comprehensively compile and review existing scientific knowledge on the convergence of AI and terrorism. A thorough primary search across five databases and a secondary search in Google Scholar yielded twenty-eight sources meeting our inclusion criteria. The review reveals several areas where AI will likely augment current terrorist activities, including propaganda and recruitment, offensive cyber operations, attack tactics and strategies, and various day-to-day undertakings. This systematic literature review elucidates these areas of technological advancement, provides implications for policy and practice, and offers directions for future research in this critical field.