Internet and Terrorism

By Suzanne Mos The Internet is a good place to get a sense of what topics certain groups or movements deem important. In this Blog post, I present the findings of comparative mixed methods research addressing the question ‘How does the use of Twitter by far-right political parties differ from right-wing extremist movements in terms ...

By Louise Laing and Maura Conway One of the questions we get asked quite often at VOX-Pol—by not just PhD students and early career researchers, but established scholars too and, in fact, that we quite often ask ourselves! — is ‘what are appropriate academic journals for publication of research on online extremism and terrorism?’ A generic ...

By Dr. Alton Chua and Dr. Snehasish Banerjee Terrorism remains a persistent challenge worldwide. While portrayed as a threat to society and human civilisation by mainstream media, terrorists sell terrorism as freedom fighting via social networking sites and private messaging platforms. However, the actual workings of terrorism are largely shrouded in secrecy. For the curious, a ...

By Anne Speckhard “If I was going to die at least I could die helping children. [It’s] illogical that you are entering a war zone that you don’t know anything about … I felt if I did something good it would overwrite the bad that had happened.” — Canadian 46-year-old Kimberly Pullman, speaking about her decision ...

By Jason Pielemeier and Chris Sheehy Since 2010, a small number of European governments have created formal, government structures for flagging alleged terrorist content directly to companies for voluntary removal under their respective terms and conditions. A review of these Internet Referral Units (IRUs) conducted by the Global Network Initiative, with help from Harvard Law ...

By Moign Khawaja It has been almost two years since the Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS, lost its final stronghold in eastern Syria and four months since its leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was killed in a US military raid. Have these two game-changing events led to the demise of the group ...

By Mehwish Rani Foreign fighters became a subject of the global security debate when many young Europeans, male and female, started travelling to Syria to take part in the conflict there in 2014 and 2015. In Pakistan, the foreign fighter phenomenon has a longer history, having emerged in the 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War. From ...

Deplatforming terrorists from messaging apps may damage existing networks, but those who remain often double down in their beliefs. By Amarnath Amarasingam Earlier this week, a fellow terrorism researcher and friend sent me a text which stated: “TamTam is amazing. I missed all the early ISIS stuff on Telegram. Now I feel like I was ...

Read in English Read in French Read in Spanish Von Peter King Als der sogenannte islamische Staat im Sommer 2014 den Medienbetrieb verstärkte, um für seinen territorialen Fortschritt im Irak und Syrien zu werben, mussten Terrorismusforscher, die ein Jahrzehnt oder länger in dieser Branche waren, einen Schritt zurücktreten und überdenken, welche Auswirkungen die Propaganda auf ...

Read in English Read in German Read in Spanish Peter King Lorsque le soi-disant État islamique a intensifié ses activités médiatiques à l’été 2014 pour promouvoir ses avancées territoriales en Irak et en Syrie, les chercheurs sur le terrorisme qui travaillaient dans ce domaine depuis une décennie ou plus ont dû prendre du recul et ...