Blog

Welcome to Volume 6 Issue 2 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter. If you have colleagues or friends who may be interested in the content of our newsletter, or in any VOX-Pol events and research, please forward this to them and encourage them to subscribe via our website. Follow us on Twitter @VOX_Pol for live updates and releases. Yours Sincerely, The ...

This Blog post is a lightly edited version of a report prepared by the EU Internet Referral Unit in Europol and circulated to law enforcement agencies and member states in October 2018. It is appearing here publicly for the first time, at the request of Europol. [Ed.] Key Takeaways Non-violent material is integral to terrorists’ propaganda ...

Yesterday, 6 May 2019, the European Commission hosted a senior officials’ meeting in Brussels, to which VOX-Pol contributed. Our Coordinator, Prof. Maura Conway (Dublin City University), focused in her remarks on findings from research, funded by EU Directorate-General Justice, forthcoming on the European extreme right’s #Twitter activity and changes to it between 2016 and 2018. Prof. Conway ...

By Stuart M Bender The shocking mass-shooting in Christchurch on 15 March was notable for using livestreaming video technology to broadcast horrific first-person footage of the shooting on social media. The perpetrator of this week’s attack on a California synagogue also allegedly planned to livestream the latter, except this did not materialise The use of social media technology ...

By Ross Frenett Introduction The murder of Lyra McKee on Good Friday has shone a spotlight on an often under-reported and under-analysed form of violent extremism, violent dissident republicanism (VDR).  McKee’s murder was not an aberration; in the past number of years, VDR groups have killed two soldiers, two Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) ...

Building upon the Melbourne (2016) and Bangkok (2017) conferences, the third edition of the Addressing the New Landscape of Terrorism international conference series took place from 22 – 24 April 2019 in Rabat, Morocco. VOX-Pol Academic Advisory Board member Dr. Brigitte Nacos (Columbia University) delivered a keynote presentation at the event. Her address provided a historical overview of the ...

By Reem Ahmed and Daniela Pisoiu In a globalized world, events thousands of miles away have far-reaching effects, mostly through their spectacularism. Oftentimes, these events feel even closer to home when there are ideas and people who might have in one way or another contributed to the facilitation of such atrocities. Right-wing extremism has long ...

By Aaron Mackey One of the most important principles underpinning the Internet is that if you say something illegal, you should be held responsible for it—not the owners of the site or service where you said it. That principle has seen many theats this year—not just in federal legislation, but also in a string of ...

VOX-Pol had considerable involvement in this week’s Europol conference on ‘Terrorism Evolving: Insights from Research.’ The two-day conference took place on Tuesday and Wednesday at Europol’s headquarter in The Hague, The Netherlands. This third annual conference of the European Counter Terrorism Centre Advisory Network on terrorism and propaganda featured, presentations by speakers, largely academic researchers, ...

By Luke Munn “From where did you receive/research/develop your beliefs? The Internet, of course.” ~ Brenton Tarrant On Friday, March 15th 2019, at 1:40pm, Brenton Tarrant walked into the first of two mosques in central Christchurch and began shooting indiscriminately, leading to the deaths of 50 people. Already there has been speculation about what drove ...