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When toxic online communities on mainstream platforms face moderation measures, such as bans, they may migrate to other platforms with laxer policies or set up their own dedicated website. Previous work suggests that, within mainstream platforms, community-level moderation is effective in mitigating the harm caused by the moderated communities. It is, however, unclear whether these results also hold when considering the broader Web ecosystem. Do toxic communities continue to grow in terms of user base and activity on their new platforms? Do their members become more toxic and ideologically radicalized? In this paper, we report the results of a large-scale observational study of how problematic online communities progress following community-level moderation measures. We analyze data from r/The_Donald} and r/Incels, two communities that were banned from Reddit and subsequently migrated to their own standalone websites. Our results suggest that, in both cases, moderation measures significantly decreased posting activity on the new platform, reducing the number of posts, active users, and newcomers. In spite of that, users in one of the studied communities (r/The_Donald) showed increases in signals associated with toxicity and radicalization, which justifies concerns that the reduction in activity may come at the expense of a more toxic and radical community. Overall, our results paint a nuanced portrait of the consequences of community-level moderation and can inform their design and deployment.

The United Kingdom has set out an ambitious online regulatory framework in its Online Harms White Paper, aiming to make the UK “the safest place in the world to be online” by countering various online harms ranging from cyberbullying to terrorist content. This is yet to come into effect, but the UK has approved an interim regime to fulfil obligations under the European Union Directive, which the UK needs to comply with during Brexit negotiations. The UK also has extensive counterterrorism legislation criminalising the viewing and sharing of terrorist content online.

Germany has an extensive framework for regulating online content, particularly with regards to hate speech and violent extremist and terrorist material. Experts also note that Germany’s regulatory framework has to some extent helped set the standard for the European, and possibly global, regulatory landscape.

France is, alongside New Zealand, an initiator of the Christchurch Call to Action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. Prior to the Christchurch Call, France has elevated tackling terrorist use of the internet as a key pillar of its counterterrorism policy,[1] supporting the EU proposal on Preventing the Dissemination of Terrorist Content Online, including the requirement for tech platforms to remove flagged terrorist content within one hour.

This report examines the patchwork of online text‑based instant messaging applications preferred by jihadist and far‑right extremist groups, with a focus on charting their technical affordances and their host companies’ stances on user privacy, security and regulation. To this end, the report analyses six online messaging services (BCM, Gab Chat, Hoop Messenger, Riot.im, Rocket.Chat and TamTam) that have been or may be used in conjunction with Telegram by extremist groups.

Morocco’s online regulatory framework consists of different laws and codes that strive to limit the spread of content than can pose a threat to the Kingdom’s “integrity, security and public order”. Central to this framework are the 2003 Anti-Terrorism Law passed in the aftermath of the 2003 Casablanca bombings and the 2016 Press Code that lays out limitations journalisitic publications and public speech. However, the existing regulatory framework is not explicitly clear regarding implications for tech platforms and the government’s powers to filter the online space – something which has been criticised by civil society. According to Freedom House, the government also resorts to “extralegal means” to remove content that it deems “controversial or undesirable” by pressuring media outlets and online figures to delete such content.