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Insights

Insights

  • Feb092022

    Islamic State’s Quest for Legitimacy through Contradictory Messaging

    Leveraging upon cyberspace has been a seemingly effortless and integral part of Islamic State’s (IS) tactics since its inception to…

  • Feb072022

    Creating Digital Narrative Worlds: The Promises of Transmedia Storytelling for P/CVE Narrative Campaigns

    Extremism is – at least partially – a communication challenge. The acceptance of extremist narratives, which provide followers with a…

  • Feb022022

    Islamic State Food Enthusiasts: IS Supporters and Their Handwritten Notes of Support In Response to the Ghweran Prison Siege

    Near the end of January, Islamic State fighters began their siege on Ghweran Prison in Hasakah, Syria followed by a…

  • Jan312022

    The Manosphere Isn’t Just White: Black Femicide and the Radicalisation of Black Male Youth

    Violence against women is a large public health issue where scholars and community organisers are striving to build support to…

  • Jan272022

    Understanding Accelerationist Narratives: Involuntary Celibacy

    “If we can’t solve our problems we must DESTROY our problems…One day incels will realise their true strength and numbers,…

  • Jan252022

    The EU Nuclear Option and the Potential for a Recrudescence of Anti-Nuclear Violence

    The recent publication of the EU Taxonomy on 1 January 2022 envisions substantial investments in nuclear energy to meet the…

  • Jan242022

    Assessing Misogyny as a ‘Gateway Drug’ into Violent Extremism

    Researchers and practitioners in the field of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) have in recent years placed an increasing…

  • Jan202022

    Exploring Extreme Language in Gaming Communities

    There is ongoing speculation that extremism might be prevalent in video game communities, or that these communities are especially vulnerable…

  • Jan182022

    Tracing Extremist Platform Migration on the Darkweb: Lessons for Deplatforming

    There is much debate surrounding the efficacy of ‘deplatforming’ extremist communities online, particularly related to whether taking down community spaces…

  • Jan122022

    Incels and Securitisation: Between Fantasy and Reality

    The horrific shooting in Plymouth by Jake Davison in August 2021 has led to an ongoing discussion about incels, what…

  • Jan102022

    Youth-on-Youth Extreme-Right Recruitment on Mainstream Social Media Platforms

    In recent months there has been a concerning number of kids and teenagers arrested for extreme-right-related terrorism offences across Western…

  • Jan062022

    QAnon and Beyond: Analysing QAnon Trends a Year After January 6th

    For some, the electoral loss of Donald Trump and the disappearance of the figure known as “Q” was marking the…

  • Jan032022

    Examining the Denver Shooter’s Ideological Views

    On 27 December 2021, Lyndon McLeod shot and killed five individuals in Denver, Colorado before being shot and killed by…

  • Dec202021

    Online Radicalisation: Moving Beyond a Simple Dichotomy

    There has been considerable concern about the threat of online radicalisation from policymakers, the media, and academics. This is unsurprising…

  • Dec162021

    Towards a Truly Post-Organisational UK Far Right? The Usefulness of a Newly Emergent Concept

    Despite recent hype around a post-organisational phase in extremist movements, the notion of a decentralised, leaderless group or movement –…

  • Dec142021

    The Role of the Internet in the Radicalisation of Extreme-Right Lone Actors

    Explaining Online Radicalisation With the rise of the Internet, there has been growing interest in its impact on radicalisation and…

  • Dec072021

    Webmasters of Hate: Right-Wing Extremists Are Getting Smarter Online

    As a researcher who studies the far-right, I spend a lot of time tracking extremists online. Earlier this month, while…

  • Nov302021

    Understanding the Internet Propaganda Campaign of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-Affiliated Ebaa News Agency

    Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), al-Qaeda’s former affiliate, constitutes one of the most prominent violent extremist organisations (VEOs) that operate in…

  • Nov262021

    Censoring Extremism: Impact of Takedowns on Islamic State Visuals

    Non-state extremist groups like Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda utilise various online channels to disseminate strategic information to members, sympathisers,…

  • Nov252021

    COVID-19 Conspiricism and the Four Ds of Stochastic Terrorism

    In the past weeks, Australian counter-terrorism officials have arrested and charged a man who encouraged anti-lockdown protesters to bring firearms…

  • Nov182021

    Understanding Accelerationist Narratives: The Boogaloo

    “You wanna create f***ing some instability while the Virginia situation is happening, make other things happen. Derail some rail lines…

  • Nov162021

    Video Games, Extremism and Terrorism: A Literature Survey

    Video games are extremely popular, with a market worth over $175 billion per year and at least 3 billion players…

  • Nov122021

    Remaining and Expanding or Surviving and Adapting? Extremist Platform Migration and Adaptation Strategies

    Despite the often-decentralised nature of extremists and violent extremists in online spaces, there is clear evidence that they attempt to…

  • Nov102021

    The Rise of the Far-Right Web

    In October 2021 the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced the establishment of a new social media…

  • Nov042021

    The Robots Will Not Save Us: The Limits of Machine Learning for Counterterrorism

    At the dawn of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld argued it would trigger a…

  • Nov022021

    Applying Systematic Content Moderation for Extremist Deterrence

    Platforms that are committed to making their online communities inhospitable to extremism require pragmatic, layered approaches to policy, detection, moderation,…

  • Oct282021

    Music and Online Far-Right Extremism

    The idea that music leads to extreme behaviour has a long history, ranging from Plato to black metal. Blues artists…

  • Oct262021

    Thinking About the Crime-Terror Nexus in the COVID-19 era

    Research indicates that the end of the Cold War gave rise to the crime-terror nexus as states ended their support…

  • Oct222021

    A Call for Orientation and Cultural Competency in Online Extremist Milieus within Prevention Efforts

    The field of behavioural threat assessment and management (BTAM) has grown significantly in recent years with increasing numbers of law…

  • Oct202021

    The Persistence of QAnon on Mainstream Social Media

    QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory and cultic social movement that needs little introduction. Just some of the harms it…

  • Oct142021

    Algorithms, the Search for Transcendence and Online Radicalisation

    Research on online radicalisation and recruitment has become increasingly sophisticated, with scholars looking at the processes, pathways, and triggers that…

  • Oct122021

    Sociocracy: How Far Would the Survivalist Movements go to Evade the Establishment?

    Anti-vax freedom seekers are vying to establish a safe haven in Mullumbimby in the remote Northern Rivers region in New…

  • Oct082021

    “Digital Soldier Reporting for Duty”: Far-Right Reactions to Major App Outages

    On 4 October 2021, just one day after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen went public about the company’s prioritisation of boosting…

  • Oct042021

    Between Real and Virtual: Far-Right Mobilisation Strategies in Eastern Europe

    Over the past few years, especially after the 2008 economic crisis, the resurgence of strong far-right groups is a significant…

  • Sep302021

    “He Looks Like a Clown”: Why is the Far-Right Mocking Fascists on Reddit?

    For years now, researchers of the far-right have been pointing at the online use of satire, irony, and humour by…

  • Sep272021

    Using Text Analysis to Visualise a Neo-Nazi Leadership Change

    By 2019 and 2020, an upsurge of far-right populism that had grown from the earlier Reclaim Australia rallies was seemingly…

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