Extreme Right

By Andre Oboler Online bullying, hate and incitement are on the rise, and new approaches are needed to tackle them. As the Australian Senate conducts hearings for its Inquiry into cyberbullying, it should consider a two-pronged approach to combating the problem. First, the government should follow the lead of Germany in imposing financial penalties on major ...

By Tiana Gaudette, Ryan Scrivens, and Garth Davies Since the advent of the Internet, far-right extremists – amongst other extremist movements – from across the globe have exploited online resources to build a transnational ‘virtual community’. The Internet is a fundamental medium that facilitates these radical communities, not only in ‘traditional’ hate sites such as Stormfront, ...

On 4-7 April, VOX-Pol researchers participated in the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention, in San Francisco, California. The ISA is one of the oldest interdisciplinary associations dedicated to understanding international, transnational and global affairs, with more than seven thousand members worldwide. Whilst topics covered at the conference are wide-ranging, there are always a large number of panels ...

By Ryan Scrivens and Garth Davies Violent extremists and those who subscribe to radical beliefs have left their digital footprints online since the inception of the World Wide Web. Notable examples include Anders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist convicted of killing 77 people in 2011, who was a registered member of a white supremacy web forum and had ties ...

By Brad Galloway and Ryan Scrivens 2017 saw an increase in the on- and offline activities of organised hate groups in various parts of the Western world, including – but, indeed, not limited to – the US, Canada, and the UK. Some have attributed this spike to the current political climate in the West, from ...

In December 2016, National Action became the first extreme right-wing group to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. This, however, did not stop them from continuing their operations under new names, e.g. ‘Scottish Dawn’ and ‘NS131’, both of which were more recently banned by the Home Office. In a previous blog post, ...

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 ...

On 15 May, VOX-Pol Programme Manager Lisa McInerney participated in  the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness’ (NJOHSP) Second Annual Domestic Terrorism Conference. The conference brought together law enforcement officers, intelligence analysts, and academics to discuss the rise of domestic extremism across the United States. The day was organised into two tracks: the ...

On 24 March VOX-Pol’s and OII’s Research Fellow Caterina Froio participated to the EHESS seminar on ‘Media and social movements’ in Paris.  (https://enseignements-2016.ehess.fr/2016/ue/1939/ )   On Friday 24 March Dr. Froio participated in the seminar on “Medias and Social Movements: sociology of publics and counter-publics”. The seminar was organized and moderated by Dr. Konstantinos Eleftheriadis ...