Click here to read our latest report “30 Years of Trends in Terrorist and Extremist Games”

Insights

Insights

  • May192023

    Co-opting Cottagecore: Pastoral Aesthetics in Reactionary and Extremist Movements

    A young woman wearing a modest gingham dress sits in an apple orchard reading a book. A woven basket is…

  • May182023

    My Wish to be a #Tradwife: An Introduction to #tradwife Memes on Whisper

    Introduction Research into online extremist behaviour is centred around Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, 4chan, Telegram, and Gab. Studies focusing on platforms…

  • May172023

    Inside the Cult of Stefan Molyneux: A Historical Exploration of Far-Right Radicalisation on YouTube

    Introduction On June 29, 2020, YouTube removed 25,000 channels, including several prominent white supremacist figures such as David Duke, Richard…

  • May162023

    The Allen, Texas Mass Shooting: An Examination of Misogyny, Anti-Asian Racism, and Internalised Racism

    Introduction Following the mass shooting in Allen, Texas on 6 May, rumours quickly began circulating about the shooter’s background and…

  • May122023

    Analysing Harmful and Supremacist Narratives on Gab Homeschooling Groups

    Introduction In January 2023, VICE news reported on a Telegram channel dedicated to sharing white supremacist homeschooling curricula with other…

  • May102023

    The Revitalisation of Christian Identity Content on YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok 

    Introduction The last five years have witnessed the revitalisation of the Christian Identity (CI) movement in the modern extremist landscape.…

  • May092023

    Christgram: White Christian Extremism on Telegram

    This Insight focuses on white Christian extremist communities on Telegram, which have been growing in the context of a renewed…

  • May032023

    The Internet Consortium for Online Safety: How Collaborative Tech, Not Legislation, Could Prevent Harmful Content Proliferation

    Introduction Countering violent extremism (CVE) in a digital context sees practitioners grappling with the enterprise of removing terrorist and violent…

  • May012023

    Ari’s Mission: Educating Young Audiences on Conspiracy Theories Through Fictional Narratives

    Introduction Narrative campaigns against extremism and conspiracy theories are popular and widely used tools to prevent and/or counter (violent) extremism…

  • Apr272023

    The Lineage of Violence: Saints Culture and Militant Accelerationist Terrorism 

    In the aftermath of the March 2019 Christchurch attack in New Zealand, shooter Brenton Tarrant was quickly ‘sainted’ by militant accelerationist…

  • Apr212023

    Wilayat Facebook and Instagram: An Exploration of Pro-IS Activities on Mainstream Platforms 

    Introduction Previous research has greatly contributed to establishing and building our understanding of IS spaces on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, and…

  • Apr192023

    The Return of the Virtual ‘Caliphate’? Mapping the Evolution of the Islamic State’s Information Ecosystem

    Introduction The Islamic State’s (IS) shock and awe campaign launched at the turn of 2014 proved to be one of…

  • Apr172023

    Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): Operating with Impunity Online

    This entry is part of a series of monthly blogs dedicated to TCAP expansion, explaining the reasons for the inclusion…

  • Apr142023

    Extremist NFTs: How Does Blockchain Immortalise Extremism?

    Introduction Blockchain allows users to preserve unique art, games, and photographs. One of the famous examples is the art collection…

  • Apr132023

    Violent Assemblages: Rethinking Screens, Media, and Lone Wolf Terrorism

    Introduction Terrorist acts often confront the public with gruesome images and unthinkable suffering. Understanding the motivations of terrorist attacks is…

  • Apr112023

    25 Years After the Good Friday Agreement: Persistent Violence and the Role of Digital Platforms in Northern Ireland Today

    Introduction 10 April marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement, the peace deal that brought…

  • Apr062023

    From Blaming China to Attacking Domestic Elites: The Evolution of Hate Speech in a Telegram Channel during the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Introduction  Prior research has found that the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a wave of online hate speech against targets such as…

  • Apr052023

    Terrorwave: The Aesthetics of Violence and Terrorist Imagery in Militant Accelerationist Subcultures

    Joshua Farrell Molloy is a research fellow of the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC). ARC is dedicated to a collaborative, empirical…

  • Apr042023

    Terrorist Bots: How Islamic State has Automated Management of its Online Community on Telegram

    Abdullah Alrhmoun, Charlie Winter and János Kertész Introduction It’s well known that terrorists have been using the internet to plan…

  • Apr032023

    ‘Telegram is King’: Extremist Foreign Fighters in the Russo-Ukrainian war

    In January 2023, Meta removed the Azov Regiment from its list of dangerous individuals and organisations. The Ukrainian regiment became…

  • Mar272023

    ‘Tomatoes for Tanks’: Humour and Violence in Post-Brexit Meme Culture

    In 2022, the humanitarian organisation World Vision published a report warning about the spread of anti-refugee messaging, in particular as…

  • Mar242023

    Youths Challenging Violent Extremism through Digital Platforms in the Philippines

    Introduction  “They tolerated the ISIS in Marawi. ISIS sympathisers!”  “They deserve it. They were handlers of killers, carnappers, drug lords…

  • Mar222023

    Granola Nazis: Digital Traditionalism, the Folkish Movement and the Normalisation of the Far-Right

    Introduction Digital traditionalist women carefully cultivate winsome images on Instagram: harvesting fields of beets with the folds of muslin dresses…

  • Mar202023

    Frank James: The New York Subway Shooter’s Radical Discourse on Social Media

    Introduction  On April 12, 2022, Frank R. James carried out a shooting in the New York City Subway, injuring ten…

  • Mar162023

    Unpacking the Incelosphere: In-group Categorisation, Incel Purity, and Competition 

    Introduction  In the near-decade since the first publicly recognised act of incel violence in 2014, at the hands of 22-year-old…

  • Mar152023

    Discourses of Violence in Incel Online Discussions After the Plymouth Shooting

    Introduction In August 2021, a young man attacked and killed his mother in Plymouth, UK. He then left his home,…

  • Mar142023

    Understanding Incels’ Online Behaviour and Perceptions of Hateful Content

    Introduction Recent years have seen an increase in awareness and concern about incels, or involuntarily celibate men, particularly because of…

  • Mar132023

    Incel PR: The Rebranding of the Incel Community & the Role of Media and Academia

    Certain usernames and names of forums have been removed to avoid amplifying their voices and platforms.  In August 2021, Jake…

  • Mar102023

    Can ‘Cyberterrorism’ Really Exist in Africa?

    Introduction Since the 1990s and the end of the Cold War, Africa has experienced a strong upward trend in ICT…

  • Mar062023

    Soliciting Online Bayʿat: Pro-Islamic State Responses to Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi’s Death

    On 30 November 2022, the official Islamic State spokesman, Abu Omar al-Muhajir, confirmed the death of Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi…

  • Mar032023

    The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’s Enduring Influence on IS-Khurasan

    The Islamic State’s Khurasan Province (ISKP) has drastically expanded its propaganda apparatus in recent months, releasing a steady flow of…

  • Mar012023

    Rebranding the East Asia Knights: A Reflection of Dawlah Islamiyah’s Effort to Learn

    What is the East Asia Wilayah? On 8 January 2023, the main Southeast Asian Islamic State media channel, the East…

  • Feb272023

    Trends in Terrorist Use of the Internet in 2022 

    Terrorists were resilient online in 2022 and have continued to adapt their methods to ensure content remains available, such as…

  • Feb242023

    Technochauvinism and Online Extremism

    Introduction In recent years, we’ve witnessed the continued rise of technochauvinism and its sibling phenomena, ‘techno-solutionism’, which gained notoriety as…

  • Feb222023

    Duelling Narratives of Vitality and Victimhood on Right-Wing TikTok: Exploring the #Pureblood Trend

    This article is the first in a series of GNET Insights about fascist health-related trends. Introduction COVID-19 vaccines emerged as…

  • Feb202023

    Assessing the Impact of 3D-Printed Weapons on the Violent Extremist Milieu

    Introduction  In October 2022, British police raided a suspected gun factory in northwest London, which was found to be producing…

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