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At Manchester Crown Court on 18 October 2024, Robert Taylor was sentenced to four years in prison with a one year extended license period for nine offences relating to racial hatred, two terror offences, two offences related to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation and one case of support for a proscribed organisation.

This Research Briefing is the second in CST’s ‘Pathway to Terror’ series that outlines CST’s specific work in tracking, monitoring and reporting individuals’ online extremism. It has two sections: the first section reveals the full extent of Taylor’s anti-Jewish activity, the ideological extremism that lay behind his offending, and CST’s investigation that led to his arrest and conviction. The second part of this report looks at the GDL network more widely, its links to the UK, its growing presence on X alongside its use of alternative tech platforms, and its role in attempting to radicalise online users globally

This report presents an analysis of the
production and propagation of online
antagonistic content related to Jews
posted on Twitter between October 2015
and October 2016 in the UK.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

This paper discusses research on QAnon, a controversial conspiracy movement. Its public engagement mechanisms and discursive practices, focusing on members’ activities on Telegram, are analysed. These activities have elevated concerns about the group’s threat to democracy, prompting intelligence agencies to identify it as a potential risk. This study emphasises the need to understand QAnon’s discursive practices for safeguarding democratic foundations. The author aims to demonstrate how linguistics can aid in analysing Political and Military discourse, assisting institutions in countering destabilising movements. The research uses Open Source Intelligence techniques to analyse QAnon members’ activities, disinformation campaigns, and conspiracy theories on Telegram. Positive Discourse Analysis and Netnography allow us to investigate discourse types and construct discoursive paradigms of resistance. The study conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses on a corpus of Telegram channels items to identify recurring themes and semantic areas, shedding light on the differences between Qlobal-Change USA and Qlobal-Change Italia channels.

This article investigates the motivations driving the production of ISIS’s distinctive 2015 video, No Respite, released in response to the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the terrorist organization’s spate of violence. The article embraces a unique methodological framework that examines both the relationship between identity, discourse, and critical geopolitics and ISIS’s specific organized persuasive communication strategies. The framework is used to explain ISIS’s use of statistics as well as competitive and masculine discourse to bolster its legitimacy as a self-proclaimed state. The analysis is conducted through the lens of ISIS’s goal to be seen as a legitimate statehood project in lieu of a violent non-state actor.