Blog

By Amy-Louise Watkin and Sean Looney To involve children in terrorism is an unthinkable prospect. And yet they have become not only targets of violence, but are being used to promote radicalised causes too. This is not just about European or American children being victims of attacks by the so-called Islamic State (IS). Young people who are ...

By Samantha North On 27 and 28 June, in a sleepy Welsh city by the sea, a group of social media and terrorism researchers came together to discuss the latest challenges in the field. I learned a lot, met people doing admirable work and came away inspired with ideas to shape my own research in the ...

The Terrorism and Social Media Conference (TASM) was held on 27 to 28 June in Swansea University. The event kicked off with a keynote speech by Prof. Bruce Hoffman from Georgetown University entitled “The Threat From ISIS and al Qaeda: Contextualising the Role of Social Media” in which he emphasised that social media has played a serious ...

This week’s Blog post is the full text of Max Hill QC’s, the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, keynote speech from last week’s TASM conference at Swansea University. The speech was widely reported on in media, including in The Guardian and The Times. Ed. By Max Hill There can be no doubt  that social media plays ...

By Glenda Cooper Some of the most powerful stories about the atrocity in recent Manchester have been told online: whether pictures of the missing, the videos taken in the aftermath or the hashtags such as #roomformanchester or #acityunited showing the city’s resilience. But there are those who have also felt under pressure from journalists. Twitter ...

By Molly Land In the wake of the recent attacks in Manchester and London, British Prime Minister Theresa May has called on social media companies to eliminate “safe spaces” online for extremist ideology. Despite losing the majority in the recent election, she is moving forward with plans to regulate online communications, including in cooperation with ...

VOX-Pol and IFSH’s Dr. Daniela Pisoiu participated in the DPT-Institute for Applied Prevention Research and National Center for Crime Prevention’s conference on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) on 17-18 June 2017 in Hanover, Germany. The conference focuses on rigorously evaluating the impact of preventive CVE programs and measures. The organisers argue there is a need for ...

Our new edited volume Terrorists’ Use of the Internet: Assessment and Response was published on 10 June. The book presents revised versions of a selection of papers delivered at the jointly VOX-Pol and Cyberterrorism Project-organised NATO Advanced Research Workshop  on ‘Terrorists’ Use of the Internet’ held at Dublin City University, Ireland in June 2016. A ...

This post is Part 2 of 2. Click here for Part 1 By Ahmet S. Yayla & Anne Speckhard Reaching out on to ISIS members via Telegram channels is a significant challenge for beginners. First of all, as the Telegram application is installed, the application copies all the contact numbers on one’s cell phone and connects the ...

By Ahmet S. Yayla & Anne Speckhard ISIS has been the most successful terrorist organization in history using social media and the Internet for distributing its propaganda, dissemination of its news and more importantly to communicate. There is no doubt that the frequency and quality of ISIS posts on the Internet, including their videos, memes ...