Blog

By André Gagné and Marc-André Argentino The Islamic State has lost most of its territory and key cities like Mosul and Raqqa, and more recently Deir al-Zour and al-Qaim, have fallen to the global coalition fighting the terrorist group. In the face of such challenges, it’s tried to maintain legitimacy through what some have called a virtual caliphate. Within ...

The Swiss Institute of Comparative Law held an international conference entitled ‘The Legal Framework for Countering Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online’ today, 8 December 2017. The conference was organised in collaboration with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UN CTED), the Swiss foundation ICT4Peace, and the Ethics and Communication Law Centre of the Università ...

The third Ministerial meeting of the EU Internet Forum was held yesterday, 6 December 2017, in Brussels.  The meeting was hosted by Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, and Commissioner for the Security Union, Julian King.  The aim of the meeting was to take stock of the progress made over the past ...

By Chris Allen Donald Trump’s decision to retweet a number of videos originally posted by Jayda Fransen – the deputy leader of the far-right street movement Britain First – was as unfounded as it was unexpected. Retweeted without additional comment, the three videos purported to show a group of Muslims pushing a boy off a ...

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism held an event this morning, 6 December 2017, at Google’s Brussels’ offices.  The event featured representatives from GIFCT founder companies, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter, along with the EU Commission, EUROPOL, ICT4Peace, CDT, and others.  The first panel discussion and Q&A included stakeholders from agencies engaged in the ...

The European Commission’s 9th Community of Users on Safe, Secure and Resilient Socieities Workshop on Radicalisation is taking place today, 5 December 2017, in Brussels.  The projects represented are CONTRA, DANTE, FIRST LINE, LIAISE 2, MINDb4ACT, Pericles, PRACTICIES, RED-Alert, SAFFRON, STRESAVIORA II, TENSOR, TRIVALENT, and VOX-Pol. The aims of the workshop are: – To identify synergies and increase links and connections between H2020- and ISF-P-funded projects on radicalisation ...

By Thomas Holt, Joshua D. Freilich and Steven Chermak In the wake of an explosion in London on September 15, President Trump called for cutting off extremists’ access to the Internet. Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner.The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better! — Donald J. ...

By Dia Kayyali and Raja Althaibani So much of Syria’s history has been purposefully erased by ISIS in recent years. And now, we’re seeing another erasure of history– this time on YouTube. Thousands of videos showing human rights abuses in Syria, as well as the channels that feature these videos, are being removed by YouTube. ...

By Tim Squirrell Reddit is now the fourth most visited website in the US. Yet, surprisingly, given its position as an extremely large community, it has been the subject of relatively little research. Tim Squirrell has developed methods of studying the genealogy, spread, and use of particular words on Reddit, as demonstrated by this case ...

By Paul Bernal Internet intermediaries – the social media companies, search engines and internet service providers who supply ways for audiences to find and access online content – are under scrutiny regarding their crucial role in the flow of digital information. Google and Facebook attracted one fifth of global advertising spend in 2016, and concerns ...