Online Library

The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Regulation on Terrorist Content Online (TCO) are both legislative measures enacted by the European Union (EU) which are aimed at regulating digital
services and combating the spread of harmful content online. While both measures are concerned with reducing online harm in the EU, they differ in the nature and extent of: the harm they purport to mitigate; the burden of compliance imposed on platforms undertaking relevant activities; and on the activities which bring platforms in scope. In its concern with a more specific and egregious form of online harm, the TCO generally imposes more stringent requirements on tech platforms and is expressed in more mandatory terms. However, this is not uniformly the case across all the areas which are common to both the DSA and the TCO. In the matter of crisis response in particular, the DSA’s requirements are more exacting and potentially more onerous than those provided by the TCO.

Analysis of ‘digital terrorism’ and hate on the Internet

This article explores one aspect of digital politics, the politics of videos and more specifically of DAESH recruitment videos. It proposes a practice theoretical approach to the politics of DAESH recruitment videos focused on the re-production of regimes of (in)visibility. The article develops an argument demonstrating specifically how digital and commercial logics characterize the aesthetic, circulatory, and infrastructuring practices re-producing the regime of (in)visibility. It shows that digital/commercial logics are at the heart of the combinatorial marketing of multiple, contradictory images of the DAESH polity in the videos; that they are core to the participatory, entrepreneurial, individualized and affective processes of contagion determining whom the videos reach and involve; and that they shape the sorting, linking, flagging and censoring of the videos that define their accessibility on the internet. The theoretical and political cost of overlooking these digital and commercial characteristics of DAESH visibility practices are high. It perpetuates misconceptions of how the videos work and what their politics are and it reinforces the digital Orientalism/Occidentalism in which these misconceptions are anchored.

In diesem Beitrag werden auf Basis von staatsanwaltschaftlichen Verfahrensakten, Daten der Programmierschnittstelle von Twitter (API) und frei zugänglichen Online-Inhalten Konstitutions- und Kommunikationsdynamiken einer rechtsextremistischen Gruppierung analysiert, von der mehrere Mitglieder 2014 wegen der Bildung einer kriminellen Vereinigung verurteilt wurden. Es wird rekonstruiert und analysiert, wie die jungen Erwachsenen über verschiedene Kommunikationskanäle innerhalb ihrer Gruppe und nach außen kommunizieren, wie sich interne und externe Selbstdarstellungen unterscheiden. Dabei wird aufgezeigt, welchen Stellenwert Gewalt und Gewaltbefürwortung in dieser Gruppe besitzen, wie sich die Mitglieder als Individuen und als Kollektiv definieren, Geltung verschaffen und von anderen abgrenzen wollen. Da für die Kommunikation der Gruppe nicht zuletzt Social Media eine Rolle spielen, wird auch diskutiert, inwiefern Mechanismen digitaler, netzwerkbasierter Kommunikation, wie die sogenannte Filterblase, für den Radikalisierungsprozess relevant sind.

Information and communication technologies shape, direct, and deter political behaviour and institutions as the increase in internet usage regulate our daily lives. The advance of internet and digital media also shape political involvement, partisanship, and ideology. Internet, as the new media, is an important information source that shapes political behaviour along with other effects on societal layers. The new technologies provide a platform for the voices of minorities and disadvantaged communities, therefore urging a pluralist agenda. They are also blamed for the recent rise of populism and polarisation by creating echo-chambers, filter-bubbles, and the “fake news.” In this study, the authors analyse the possible effects of internet usage on political polarisation and ideological extremism by utilising World Values Survey Wave 7 Data for 40 countries. The findings show that internet usage and education level decrease extremism, while safety, work anxiety, and religiosity drive people to the extreme.

Popular music research has explored digital technologies’ potential for democratizing music consumption, distribution, and production. This article, however, focuses on the anti-democratic implications of digitalization for popular music by exploring discussions of music in 1,173 posts in 6 Alt-Right forums, from 2010–2018. It demonstrates that, first, owing to algorithmic architecture, interpretations of musical politics are mutually reinforcing in these spaces. Second, a large degree of musical “omnivorousness” in these forums is both a feature of contemporary far-right strategy and a consequence of digitalization. Third, by articulating “reactionary democratic” principles through music criticism, these movements more easily evade regulation.