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
Regional Trends
Latin America
Coronavirus
Regional Trends
While experts can point to overarching global trends in terrorism and violent extremism, we also know that there are significant regional and country-based variables in how these groups recruit, mobilize, propagandize, and coordinate attacks. There are also varying international trends in the types of platforms terrorists and violent extremists use in different parts of the world, their overarching aims and the ways their aims manifest online. GNET includes expert insights from academics and practitioners all over the world, feeding in the nuances and adversarial shifts they report on.
Latin America
Analyzing trends in Latin America, insights contextualize online violent extremism in both continental and country specific ways. Relevant research touches on the overall understanding of online extremism in Latin America along with continent-wide trends in the face of specific events such as COVID-19. Additionally, there has been a focus on country specific extremist group trends such as Mexican cartels’ use of social media, and the significance and use of cryptocurrencies in criminal enterprises across El Salvador.
Coronavirus
Coronavirus has had an ongoing and undeniable global impact on social, political, and economic structures. The pandemic and its related international lockdowns also saw increased activity from violent extremist networks, having a potential effect on processes of radicalization including from white supremacy, Islamist extremist, and misogyny-based violent extremist groups as well as violence-inducing conspiracy theory networks and accelorationist groups. Different extremist groups all sought to reinterpret or capitalize on the pandemic to suit their overall goals, affecting online trends and platform usage in different ways.
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24th February 2022Communication Technologies, Conspiracies, and Disinformation in Latin America: COVID-19 and BeyondDr. Alexis Henshaw
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