Extremism

By Michele Grossman Like many other Western liberal democracies, Australia is currently experiencing a range of challenges to both the stability and sanctity of democratic structures and institutions and the beliefs and values that underwrite them. Threats to democracies are nothing new – they have existed for as long as democracies themselves. However, faced with ...

H. Colleen Sinclair, Louisiana State University There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content. They ...

Anthony English, The Open University For some, the shocking scenes of violence which have erupted across dozens of locations in England and Northern Ireland will evoke an all-too-real concern – could someone close to me get involved in the violence? Alongside those directly affected by the act of rioting itself, there are another set of ...

Sara H Wilford, De Montfort University Look closely at the pictures of the violent unrest that has spread across England and Northern Ireland and you will notice something that is not being spoken about. The rioters seen fighting, attacking police and setting fire to buildings are often middle aged – people in their 40s, 50s ...

By Arthur Bradley An assailant injured at least five people with a knife in a tea garden in Sehit Rustem Demirbas Park, Eskisehir, northwestern Turkey, on 12 August. Police apprehended the 18-year-old suspect within a few minutes of the violence starting. He was dressed in camouflage trousers and an assault vest, helmet, goggles and skull mask, and also reportedly carried ...

By Elizabeth Pearson Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is now a national emergency. A new report by the UK National Police Chiefs’ Council this week noted VAWG-related crimes increased by 37% between 2018 and 2023, with male perpetrators ever younger. Much is technology-related, and police chiefs noted young men are being ‘radicalised’ into misogyny ...

By Steven Roberts, Monash University and Stephanie Wescott, Monash University Many parents are worried about their children using social media. But these concerns tend to focus on privacy, exposure to explicit material or contact with strangers. As researchers looking at sexism and misogyny in Australian schools and the influence of social media, we think it ...

By Ryan Scrivens For more on these findings and the nature of the study in general, see the full manuscript which was recently published open access in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Despite the ongoing need for practitioners to identify violent right-wing extremists (RWEs) online before their engagement in violence offline, there is little empirical knowledge about their digital footprints in general ...

By Shannon Zimmerman Last Saturday, a man armed with a large knife entered the Westfield shopping centre at Bondi Junction in Sydney. He proceeded to attack over a dozen people before being killed by a policewoman. Video footage appears to show the attacker avoiding men and targeting women. Five of the six people killed in ...

By Connor Rees The Seeing Eye to Eye: Developing Sustainable Multistakeholder Communities (SE2E) project was developed and funded through the 2022 Terrorism and Social Media (TASM) Conference sandpit event. The project aim is conducting empirical research into how various stakeholders view and experience multistakeholderism in countering terrorism and violent extremism online (TVE) as part of the larger ...