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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 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.

This workbook teaches researchers, analysts and practitioners how different sorts of terrorist and violent extremist actors utilise financial technologies and cryptocurrencies to finance their operations. The process of terrorist adoption of financial technologies is spelled out for various organisations and can assist analysts to estimate whether and when a group or terrorist actor would embrace a financial technology or cryptocurrency. The workbook also includes terms that may be used to search information holdings for terrorist adoption of cryptocurrencies or financial technologies, offering early warning of terrorist adoption.

The certification of the 2020 election drew a substantial crowd of far-right extremists, with 13% of individuals arrested for crimes committed at the Capitol on January 6th having ties to militia groups. Even before the 2020 election, a 2019 report highlighted the increasing popularity of QAnon conspiracy theories among militia members, a trend which only grew more prevalent as the COVID-19 pandemic brought together a collection of extremist actors. During and following the 2020 election, militia members incorporated QAnon election fraud conspiracies as a central belief, and these conspiracies served as the main mobilizing factor driving militia members to the Capitol on January 6th. This paper explores why QAnon 2020 election conspiracies appealed so strongly to QAnon-adhering militia members. It further examines connections between QAnon 2020 election conspiracies and existing ideological foundations within militias, as well as how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated and cemented these convergences.

Before, during, and after the 2020 election, online QAnon communities latched onto conspiracies of a “deep state” interfering in the 2020 election to steal Donald Trump’s election win. In this study of QAnon and the militia-sphere, QAnon 2020 election fraud conspiracies are defined as conspiracies emerging from QAnon communities claiming a group of actors within the government interfered in the election. These conspiracies include the beliefs that “middle-of-the-night dumps of fake mail-in ballots [swung] red states to blue” and “Republican votes had been changed or thrown out thanks to foreign plots, complex CIA vote-harvesting programs, and the machinations of a truly evil election administrator–the voting-machine company Dominion.” QAnon’s 2020 election fraud conspiracies took root within far-right communities fiercely loyal to Donald Trump, but other underlying factors within QAnon also appealed more broadly to militias.

The project used the grounded theory-inspired software, “Delve,” to insert transcripts from official court documents from the Department of Justice, video clips published by news outlets, news articles, publicly available social media posts, and public interviews with QAnon-adhering militia members arrested for crimes on January 6th. These quotes were then coded within the transcripts based on their reflection of militia ideology, QAnon language and conspiracies, the 2020 election, and other ideas more broadly found within the far-right. This paper explores three prevailing categories within the data: government corruption, apocalypticism, and defense. Analysis of these categories suggests that QAnon appeals to QAnon-adhering militia members because it aligns with existing foundational militia concepts and conspiracies. Additionally, while the pandemic accelerated QAnon’s appeal to militia members, the 2020 election cemented this trend. This paper assesses that, in the future, QAnon’s growing presence within the militia-sphere will increase convergences between militias and other far-right groups, as well as draw individuals from the mainstream into the militia-sphere.

In this report, Tech Against Terrorism investigates the use of designation: a powerful tool available to governments to facilitate improved action against terrorist use of the internet in a way that upholds the rule of law.
We detail how terrorist designation differs from one jurisdiction to another. We argue that these counterterrorism measures, whether online or offline, must be grounded: judiciary systems must be brought into the 21st century when designating terrorism. In the context of terrorist use of the internet, governments and legislatures must take ownership of the problem, rather than leave the issue to tech companies who must second guess fragmented and incoherent designation processes.