OSR

The Role of the Internet in Facilitating Violent Extremism: Insights from Former Right-Wing Extremists

Publié le 20 juillet 2020

T Gaudette, R Scrivens, V Venkatesh – Terrorism and Political Violence, 2020 – Taylor & Francis

While a growing body of evidence suggests that the Internet is a key facilitator of violent extremism, research in this area has rarely incorporated former extremists’ experiences with the Internet when they were involved in violent extremism. To address this gap, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten Canadian former right-wing extremists who were involved in violent racist skinhead groups, with interview questions provided by thirty Canadian law enforcement officials and ten community activists. Participants were asked about their use of the Internet and the connection between their on- and offline worlds during their involvement in the violent right-wing extremist movement. Overall, our study findings highlight the interplay between the Internet and violent extremism as well as the interactions between the on- and offline worlds of violent extremists. We conclude with a discussion of study limitations and avenues for future research.

Exploring the “Demand Side” of Online Radicalization: Evidence from the Canadian Context

Publié le 15 juillet 2020Mis à jour le 15 juillet 2020

MF Bastug, A Douai, D Akca – Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2020 – Taylor & Francis

Abstract

We examined whether and how social media play a role in the process of radicalization, and whether and for what purposes extremists use social media after they become radicalized within a sample of fifty-one Canadian extremists. Differences between converts and non-converts in terms of their radicalization process, involvement in terrorism, and social media usage were also investigated. Data were collected from a combination of media reports via an in-depth LexisNexis search and court records obtained from The Canadian Legal Information Institute database. The results confirm that social media played a role either during or after the radicalization process of the majority of the sample and converts are more vulnerable to online radicalization than non-converts.