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This article examines the problem of hate and toxic behavior in gaming. Videogames have risen to become a dominant cultural form, seeing significant increases in players, playtime, and revenue. More people are playing games than ever before, broadening “gamers” into a highly diverse demographic. Yet this rise has been accompanied by a growing recognition of the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of harassment taking place on these platforms. Hate within gaming creates toxic communities and takes a toll particularly on marginalized groups, raising both ethical and financial issues for the industry, who seek to address this problem in multiple ways. This paper surveys and synthesizes recent research on the topic from both inside and outside academia, laying out the problem, its manifestations, key drivers, and current responses. It concludes with a research agenda that offers a foundation for researchers, policy-makers, and companies to build from.

Considerable attention has been paid by researchers to social media platforms, especially the ‘big companies’, and increasingly also messaging applications, and how effectively they moderate extremist and terrorist content on their services. Much less attention has yet been paid to if and how infrastructure and service providers, further down ‘the tech stack’, deal with extremism and terrorism. Content Delivery Networks (CDN) such as Cloudflare play an underestimated role in moderating the presence of extremist and terrorist content online as it is impossible for these websites to operate without DDoS protection. This is evidenced by the takedown of a wide range websites such as The Daily Stormer, 8chan, a variety of Taliban websites and more recently the organised harassment site Kiwifarms following refusal of service by Cloudflare. However, it is unclear whether there is any formal process of content review conducted by the company when it decides to refuse services. This article aims to first provide an analysis of what extremist and terrorist websites make use of Cloudflare’s services as well as other CDNs, and how many of them have been subject to takedown following refusal of service. Following this the article analyses CDNs’ terms of service and how current and upcoming internet regulation applies to these CDNs.

This paper reviews online gender-based violence (OGBV) as existing within a continuum of (on- and offline) violence, emphasising the connections with different extremist ideologies, including the dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC). It aims to prioritise a gender perspective in responding to TVEC so that social media platforms can better intervene in and mitigate misogynistic pathways to radicalisation that can begin (or be reinforced) online. The discussion recognises that the mitigation of OGBV and online pathways to radicalisation requires a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach. Whilst there are steps that governments and civil society can and should take, such as overseeing and enforcing emerging regulatory frameworks and voluntary commitments, this paper and its recommendations emphasise the role and actions of platforms.

This paper is based on an experiment-based study carried out in the first half of 2023, which aimed to understand how terrorist organizations can potentially exploit artificial intelligence. It discusses the risks of using AI to produce and disseminate propaganda, as well as verifies whether it can be used to facilitate access to terrorist content. It also explores if AI-based platforms can be used to access terrorism-related know-how. This paper also focuses on understanding the specificity of content moderation procedures introduced by these services to mitigate their use by violent extremists and provides recommendations for increasing their efficiency.

The twenty-first century’s development of the Internet has led to a significant shift in contemporary communication (Zelin in The state of global jihad online: a qualitative, guantitative, and cross-lingual analysis. New America Foundation, 2013). While the Internet is widely utilised in everyday life to distribute and share information, it has also created an environment in which virtual societies have become a breeding ground for new risks and threats (Hawdon et al. in NORDICOM 3:29–37, 2015). Consequently, terrorist and extremist organisations exploit the accessibility of the Internet to facilitate their violent activities and spread their extremist ideology (Montasari et al. in Privacy, Security and Forensics in the Internet of Things (IoT). Springer International Publishing AG, 2022). This chapter aims to analyse the impact of the Internet on the rise of extremism and terrorism. To this end, the chapter will first investigate the role of the Internet in promoting the online radicalisation process, which leads to participation in terrorist acts. It will then critically examine how the Internet alters the nature of violent extremism, including its fatal consequences in the real world. Finally, the chapter will explore how and for what purposes violent extremists use the Internet, focusing on recruitment through propaganda, training and planning by sharing information, psychological warfare and fundraising.

The approach from the far-right in producing and disseminating visual propaganda has allowed for a persistent online presence to be maintained, despite efforts to remove extremist and hateful content. This chapter will critically explore the academic literature which considers how far-right actors are taking advantages of the affordances of online communication routes to spread visual propaganda. Three key strategies which emerge from the literature will be critically discussed to understand the role of visual imagery in facilitating and maintaining far-right online discourse. Firstly, the use of imagery to other out-groups through boundary construction will be considered. From understanding how such representations drive online engagement, the second strategy of image and information manipulation will be discussed. This strategy will consider how the far-right take advantage of social media systems to garner more visibility through manipulating and framing imagery. Lastly, considerations will be made towards how humour through meme images and board subculture have been used as a strategy to lower the boundary for the participation in extremist ideology.