Welcome to Volume 10, Issue 1 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter. NEW VOX-Pol PUBLICATION: REASSURE VOX-Pol is pleased to present the latest report in the VOX-Pol publication series, titled Online Extremism and Terrorism Researchers’ Security, Safety, and Resilience: Findings from the Field, authored by Elizabeth Pearson, Joe Whittaker, Till Baaken, Sara Zeiger, Farangiz Atamuradova, and Maura Conway. Elizabeth
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Proto-State Media Systems: The Digital Rise of of Al-Qaeda and ISIS – A Book Review
Book Review by Andrew Glazzard Terrorism is, as we know, propaganda in word and deed. Terrorists communicate symbolically (through their choice of targets, or their methods of attack) as well as directly through statements, stories and appeals. There is, therefore, no shortage of studies addressing how terrorists exploit mass media, from the made-for-television spectaculars of
The ‘Great Migration’: Recent Accelerationist Efforts to Switch Social Media Platforms
By Charlie Winter Since Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in October, there has been much conjecture about how its changes in policy, particularly in relation to the reinstatement of accounts belonging to prominent white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, will make Twitter a new core arena for extreme right wing (ERW) messaging and outreach. Notably, this
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has disrupted the Christchurch Call – NZ needs to rethink its digital strategy
By Markus Luczak-Roesch, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter as the new sole private owner has delivered plenty of material for memes. Ironically, much of the debate about Twitter is still happening on the platform itself, sometimes with Musk jumping into the conversations personally. At the same time,
Why outsourcing counter-terrorism online won’t work in future
By David Wells Policing online hate speech currently falls into a murky space shared between governments and big tech. The past five years have seen the creation of a latticework of overlapping methodologies to identify and remove online terrorist content and hate speech. Most notably, a significant proportion of these efforts have effectively been privatised
Attentat de Buffalo – Enseignements sur le journal d’un radicalisé d’ultra droite
This article was originally published in English on GNET, the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. By Laurence Bindner and Raphael Gluck, Le journal de bord de Payton Gendron, auteur de l’attentat de Buffalo le 14 mai 2022 ayant causé la mort de 10 personnes et blessé trois autres, est un document important dans la
Regulating online hate will have unintended, but predictable, consequences
By Garth Davies, Simon Fraser University and Sarah Negrin, Simon Fraser University The Canadian government is currently holding consultations on a new online hate bill. This bill would update Bill C-36, which addresses hate propaganda, hate crimes and hate speech; the amendment died following the election call last year. Hate propagated on social media and
Academia is Lagging Behind When It Comes to Online Extremism and Terrorism Researcher Welfare
By Dr Elizabeth Pearson Terrorist propaganda videos, extremist narratives, child sexual exploitation images. These are amongst the materials that content moderators across social media platforms deal with on a daily basis. They’re also materials that academic researchers engage with in order to better understand particular forms of online crime. Over the past decade, the emotional
Rethinking Social Media and Extremism: A Book Review
Book Review by Seán Looney “Put starkly: Facebook livestreamed this massacre. While the terrorist was cast as a ‘lone gunman’ he was anything but alone.” The introduction to Editors Shirley Leitch and Paul Pickering’s book lays out the global impact of the Christchurch Attack succinctly. The book could be more accurately described as ‘Rethinking Social
Online Extremist Ecosystems? Reflections from a Critical Cross-Disciplinary Discussion
This article summarizes a panel from the Terrorism and Social Media Conference 2022 hosted by Swansea University. By Mr Jade Hutchinson State of play Networks of organisms and their relationship with different environments are difficult to theorize. Natural sciences are abundant in terms and concepts to articulate the emergent complexity of evolving networks, their processes