Blog

The first VOX-Pol Next Generation Network Conference took place on 25 and 26 September 2025 Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. The next Gen Network is a community of early-career researchers (ECRs) working on issues related to violent online extremism in its many forms. The conference included a huge diversity of topics and close to ...

By Samuel Olaniran In global discussions about online extremism, messaging apps such as WhatsApp often receive less attention than platforms like Facebook, X, or TikTok. Yet WhatsApp has become one of the most powerful political tools in the Global South. Its encrypted design, ubiquity, and integration into everyday social life make it a particularly attractive ...

Kristy Campion, Charles Sturt University and Emma Colvin, Charles Sturt University Vulnerable young Australians are being targeted and recruited into extremist organisations. Sometimes, adult recruiters use grooming and coercion. Young people are seen as easy targets because they are looking for a place to belong, rather than holding deep-seated ideological beliefs. Last week, Australia’s Independent ...

The VOX-Pol Blog publishes weekly on Wednesdays on the topic of online extremism and online terrorism. It began in 2014 and now has over 500 entries. Each Blog post is added into the VOX-Pol Online Library so it’s searchable by title, topic and author. The Blog publishes original research, article summaries, book reviews, editorials, and ...

By Alastair Reed, Anne Craanen, and Arthur Bradley In the digital age, the aftermath of terrorist attacks is often captured and disseminated not only by the perpetrators, but also by bystanders. Mobile phone videos, CCTV footage, body cam recordings, and livestreams routinely surface online within moments of such events. While this bystander content is not ...

By Nicola Mathieson, Audrey Gagnon, and Ashton Kingdon In June 2025, C-REX and VOX-Pol hosted the second edition of the PhD Summer School ‘Studying Online Far-Right Extremism: Methods, Personal Safety, and Ethics’, organised by Audrey Gagnon (University of Ottawa) and Nicola Mathieson (University of Liverpool).  In addition to lectures on qualitative and quantitative approaches to ...

Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 9 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter. UPCOMING VOX-Pol PUBLICATION A new VOX-Pol report will be launched in a few weeks time, titled Researching the Far Right Safely in Academia: Current Practices and Constraints by Antonia Vaughan. The launch date and online event will be announced soon! Dr. Antonia Vaughan recently completed a PhD in Politics, Languages ...

By Audrey Gagnon and Nicola Mathieson The Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) and VOX-Pol recently hosted a PhD Summer School on Studying Online Far-Right Extremism. The Summer School, which took place at the University of Oslo from June 9-13, was organized by Audrey Gagnon (University of Ottawa) and Nicola Mathieson (University of Liverpool). It ...

Is your research related to online extremism and/or terrorism? Would you like to share some of your findings or reflections with an audience, including other researchers, policymakers, law enforcement, social media company representatives, and others, with similar interests? If so, how about contributing to the VOX-Pol Blog? We will publish your contribution and communicate it to ...

The VOX-Pol Blog publishes weekly on a Wednesday, and takes a break in August, when we share the most-read post of the year. This year, VOX-Pol has published a total of 48 posts. Over ten of these articles were on the topic of ‘incels’ and ‘online misogyny’. ‘Young people’ were the primary focus of five ...