Blog
Technology and the Swarm: A Dialogic Turn in Online Far-Right Activism
March 11, 2020
By Dr. William Allchorn In late January this year, the outgoing director general of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency, Sir Andrew Parker, suggested that technology was one of the biggest challenges facing the UK’s Security Services. Sir Andrew said he was particularly interested in artificial intelligence “because of our need to be able to make sense of ...
News
New VOX-Pol Report: The Legal Response of Western Democracies to Online Terrorism and Extremism
March 4, 2020
VOX-Pol is pleased to present the latest report in the VOX-Pol publication series, titled The Legal Response of Western Democracies to Online Terrorism and Extremism and Its Impact on the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Expression, written by researcher and human rights attorney, Nery Ramati. Three blog posts were published in the lead up ...
Blog
From the French Revolution, the First Amendment and the Third Reich to Twitter and Facebook: The Impact of Legal Histories on the Fight Against Online Extremism – Part 3: Germany
February 26, 2020
By Nery Ramati The need to develop legal tools in order to cope with the dangers of online extremism and terrorism has been an issue that has kept legislators, government officials, and security forces around the globe very busy in recent years. In liberal democracies, the legal challenges are intensified due to the obvious dangers ...
Blog
Exploring Canadian Far-Right Extremism on Facebook
February 5, 2020
By Ryan Scrivens and Amarnath Amarasingam Following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Canadian right-wing extremist (RWE) groups tried desperately to band together, planning a number of rallies and events in some of the nation’s most urban cities to show support for the extreme right in general and to promote racist, anti-immigration sentiment ...
News
New VOX-Pol Report: Extreme Digital Speech: Contexts, Responses and Solutions
January 7, 2020
VOX-Pol is pleased to present the latest report in the VOX-Pol publication series, titled Extreme Digital Speech: Contexts, Responses and Solutions, edited by Bharath Ganesh and Jonathan Bright. About the Report Extreme digital speech (EDS) is an emerging challenge that requires co-ordination between governments, civil society and the private sector. In this report, a range ...
Blog
Contenus Terroristes sur Internet: Le Futur Règlement Européen en Question
November 7, 2019
Par Laurence Bindner et Raphael Gluck, co-fondateurs de JOS Project Au cours de l’année 2018, alors que Daech recule de plus en plus sur le terrain, l’Etat islamique (EI) résiste sur un autre front, celui du djihad médiatique. Les nouvelles productions, en nombre certes réduit, continuent d’être diffusées sur le web, tandis que les archives ...
Blog
Fear, More Than Hate, Feeds Online Bigotry and Real-World Violence
March 13, 2019
By Adam G. Klein When a U.S. senator asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Can you define hate speech?” it was arguably the most important question that social networks face: how to identify extremism inside their communities. Hate crimes in the 21st century follow a familiar pattern in which an online tirade escalates into violent actions. ...
Blog
Tracing Transnational Linkages on Twitter: Mapping Indian Diaspora Supporters of Brexit and Trump
February 20, 2019
By Eviane Leidig A lacuna exists in the study of the radical right whereby researchers focus disproportionately on developments in Europe and North America. Yet, countries such as India, the Philippines, Turkey, and Brazil highlight how the radical right can operate, and indeed flourish, beyond the West. Our failure to incorporate these non-Western case studies poses ...
Blog
One-to-one Digital Interventions: How can Practitioners Directly Reach Young People Expressing Interest in Extremist Content Online?
January 30, 2019
VOX-Pol contributed to the inaugural Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Civil Society Empowerment Programme (CSEP) campaigns event in Brussels this week. We therefore thought we’d share some insights from a previous RAN event focused on online CVE. [Ed.] Introduction It is an essential part of extremist propaganda and outreach to not only communicate their messages to ...
Blog
How Social Media Users in Kyrgyzstan are Turned into “Extremists”
January 9, 2019
By Elnura Alkanova Since the 2000s, social networks have been widely used both as platform for like-minded users and an instrument for spreading information and ideas. But the rapid dissemination of facts and opinions also results in an uncontrollable stream of information. As a result, we are witnessing an increasing number of posts with negative content ...