Anonymous Hackers could be Islamic State’s Online Nemesis

by Athina Karatzogianni One of the key issues the West has had to face in countering Islamic State (IS) is the jihadi group’s mastery of online propaganda, seen in hundreds of thousands of messages celebrating the atrocities against civilians and spreading the message of radicalisation. It seems clear that efforts to counter IS online are missing

How Social Media was Key to Islamic State’s Attack on Paris

by Robyn Torok While the average person was getting on with life in Paris before last Friday’s terror bombings and shootings, Twitter threads in Arabic from the Middle East were urging for attacks to be launched upon coalition forces in their home countries. “Advance, advance – forward, forward” they said, regarding Paris. Iraqi forces had

VOX-Pol Lunch Briefing Series

This Autumn, the VOX-Pol Network of Excellence invites you to a series of Lunchtime Briefing Seminars, each exploring a different aspect of Violent Online Political Extremism. Sessions run each week, with themes covered including lone actor terrorists and online influences; IS, social media, and violent online Jihad; the Internet and the extreme right; female IS

Using Twitter as a Data Source: An Overview of Current Social Media Research Tools

by Wasim Ahmed I have a social media research blog where I find and write about tools that can be used to capture and analyse data from social media platforms. My PhD looks at Twitter data for health, such as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. I am increasingly asked why I am looking at Twitter,

Drawing the Line Between Free Speech and Online Radicalisation

by Jacob Mchangama The global spate of terrorist attacks has brought the phenomenon of online radicalisation to the forefront. Governments and intelligence services warn that extremist groups use social media to recruit new adherents and potential terrorists. From the perspective of human rights, this raises a question – where should the line be drawn between

VOX-Pol participates in CEU Summer School

VOX-Pol Programme Manager Lisa McInerney is participating in Central European University’s CMDS Summer Program on Advanced Topics in Internet Governance, Civil Society and Communication Policy Advocacy. The CMDS Summer Program is being held from 28 June to 4 July at CEU’s School of Public Policy in Budapest. The week-long program includes a range of sessions on

VOX-Pol Newsletter 1(3) November 2014

Dear Reader, Welcome to the third issue of the VOX-Pol Newsletter! The VOX-Pol Network of Excellence is a European Union Framework Programme 7 funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of Violent Online Political Extremism and responses to it. It is a five-year programme which commenced on 1 January, 2014.