Following the arrest of one of its UK based followers last year, an organisation described by the Home Secretary as a “vile white supremacist group” that targeted young and vulnerable people online, became the most recent organisation to be proscribed under UK laws. Led by a 13-year-old based in Northern Europe, the organisation advocated the… Continue reading “Countering the Radical Right in the UK: Personal and Professional Experiences of Radical Right Extremism”
Over the past decade and a half, counter-narratives – defined as ‘messages that…[demystify], deconstruct or delegitimise extremist narratives’ (Tuck and Silverman 2016: 65) – have become a key part of western efforts to combat terrorism. Placed at the softer end of counter terror (CT) tactics and entering the UK policy discourse in mid-2005, the use… Continue reading “Moving Away from Islamist Extremism: Assessing Counter Narrative Responses to the Far-Right Online”
Within the radical right, men have always out-numbered women; I was one of those women for five years of my life. In 2012 I began disengaging from the extremist underground and I would love to be able to say that I made a clean break over night, however I would be lying through my teeth.… Continue reading “Personal reflections from a woman in the extremist underground”
Earlier this week, the outgoing director general of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency, Sir Andrew Parker, suggested that technology was one of the biggest challenges facing the UK’s Security Services. Sir Andrew said he was particularly interested in artificial intelligence “because of our need to be able to make sense of the data lives of thousands of… Continue reading “Technology and the Swarm: A Dialogic Turn in Online Far-Right Activism”
With radical right extremism on the rise globally, here are 5 ways that we should think about combating it based on policy lessons from the United Kingdom. In a year that has proven especially deadly, policymakers are increasingly turning their attention to the (not so) new phenomenon of extreme right-wing violence. Yet, it does still… Continue reading “5 Ways Policymakers Should Combat The Radical Right In 2020”
Cultural integration, pluralism, and multiculturalism (sometimes termed “mosaics” or “melting pots”) have been largely studied as processes of democratization, one whereby ethnic confrontation is reduced through tolerance and cooperation. The assumption that such socio-political transitions are steps towards a broader sense of equality has made it difficult to understand the emergence of radical right extremism… Continue reading ““Right” roads to “pluralism””
Has the Norwegian police learned anything from its failure in the 2011 Breivik attacks? A recent terror attack at a mosque near Oslo raises important questions about the extent and range of radical right extremism and the Norwegian state response to it. On the 10th of August 2019, the young radical right extremist Philip… Continue reading “Behind Norway’s terrorist attack that was luckily thwarted”
Introduction It was recently announced that Lord Carlile of Berriew would be leading the independent review of the U.K.’s Prevent Strategy, which is expected to start within the next month. I’ve been asked recently what I’d want to see in this review and have covered these points on my YouTube Channel. However, I wanted to… Continue reading “What I’d like to see in the upcoming independent review of the Prevent Strategy”
Understanding how hate groups cohere in online spaces is essential toward understanding their growth and capacity to radicalize. Online radical-right extremist groups exhibit a massive range of ideological stances and approaches, which vary from country to country. These include the affirmed political stances of alt-right groups, the social movement-like practices of groups like Generation Identity,… Continue reading “Understanding Digital Hate Culture”
While the bodies of victims from the Christchurch shooting last Friday were still warm, including those of 3 and 4-year-old children, social media platforms were busily taking down livestreamed footage from the alleged killer. Due to morbid curiosity and maddening algorithms that saw the terrorist propaganda ‘trending’, Facebook alone removed the video 1.5 million times in 24 hours.… Continue reading “On lone wolf terrorism: past, present, and future”
