Contextual
Resources

Once a government or tech company develops a definition of terrorism or violent extremism, it can be difficult to know how to apply these definitions to the variety of ways that terrorism and violent extremism manifests internationally and across online spaces.

This section of the site aims to highlight contextual resources on themes related to applying definitions to the online space.  GIFCT funds the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) to bring forward actionable insights from experts and practitioners around the world to better inform and give context to tech companies, governments, practitioners and other stakeholders in this field. Insights are curated here under context-based themes.

Filters

Platform & Product Type/Focus

The internet is not a homogenous space. There is significant variation in what platforms or tools online do, and subsequently an equally significant variation in how a platform might be exploited and the signal available to a platform to detect such exploitation. Experts continue to track the different types of platforms and tools being exploited by terrorists and violent extremist, looking at how and why a group or individual might use a product. While some platforms are more global in usage, others are specific to trends in regions or particular types of violent extremist groups.

Gaming

Without establishing any causal connections between offline violence and gaming communities, recent research points towards video gaming communities as being vulnerable to extremist discourse. However, research highlights particular gaming platforms’ set of risks for offline harm, including the documented use of platforms by extremist and terrorist actors.

  • 01st February 2021
    Jihadists at Play
    Dr. Aaron Tugendhaft
  • 18th January 2021
    Beyond the “LULZ:” Memifying Murder as ‘Meaningful’ Gamification in Far-Right Content
    Ashley Mattheis
  • 02nd December 2020
    Of Challengers and Socialisers: How User Types Moderate the Appeal of Extremist Gamified Applications
    Linda Schlegel
  • 05th November 2020
    The Hate Matrix of Online Gaming
    Dr. Matthew Sharpe
  • 17th September 2020
    No Child’s Play: The Identitarian Movement’s ‘Patriotic’ Video Game
    Linda Schlegel
  • 02nd September 2020
    Islamic State’s Use of Gamification and Low-Tech Terror Tactics
    Sammie Wicks

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