Far right extremist groups keep emerging and attempt to create online coalitions relying on Telegram’s permissive stance towards terrorist and extremist content. This trend created the new ecosystem on Telegram known as Terrorgram, a set of Telegram channels, communal chats, and individual accounts that subscribe to, or promote neo-Nazism, militant accelerationism,…
The proliferation of extremist ideologies across digital platforms has created an urgent need for scalable counter-narrative strategies that can match the volume and sophistication of contemporary propaganda efforts. This article examines the potential of artificial intelligence-generated podcasts and radio programs as transformative tools for countering radicalisation, propaganda, and disinformation, with…
As the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows across all sectors of society, this Hedayah research brief on “Artificial Intelligence for Counter Extremism’, examines how AI may be responsibly leveraged to support terrorism prevention efforts. The repot underlines that while terrorist exploitation of AI remains largely experimental at present, it…
The Politics of Preventing Violent Extremism explores how counter-radicalization policies have come to dominate European counterterrorism and security. Using interviews with practitioners across seven European nations, it documents how national security policies have been repurposed to identify individuals deemed ‘vulnerable’ to extremism and radicalization, and to provide targeted preventative interventions from…
Incels are a group of people who mobilize around their inability to form romantic and/or sexual relationships. Their mobilization has been linked to online misogyny and violent acts of terrorism. This article explores discourses around gender equality and sexual rights on the extremist forum incels.is. We approach these discourses through…
This conference report summarises the discussions at a roundtable covering online hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric and the implications of AI in their spread and amplification. The closed-door roundtable took place on 31 March 2025, and included both presentations across three sessions and participants from academia, civil society, advocacy groups,…
This article argues that the general principle that there is an explanatory split between cognitive radicalization and behavioral radicalization does not hold. It first sketches the principle and the evidence adduced in favour of it. The first major problem with the principle is that it is based merely on evidence…
The intentional spread of false or misleading information to inflict harm, commonly referred to as disinformation, raises unprecedented challenges in today’s digital age. This phenomenon becomes even more concerning when strategically leveraged by violent extremist actors to disseminate hateful narratives, incite violence, and recruit followers. While both disinformation and violent…
Some scholars have suggested that IS serves as a model of media innovation for violent jihadi extremists using text, images, videos, and audiotapes as propaganda tools, but comparative multimodal studies of violent jihadi extremists are needed to critically examine this assertion. To test whether other groups’ media products mirror IS’s…
This paper investigates one sub-topic within a right-wing extremist (RWE) movement in India – love jihad, a conspiracy created by Hindutva nationalists alleging that Muslims forcefully convert Hindu women to Islam with allurements of love. Love jihad narratives and digital dissemination tactics serve a nation-building, patriarchal and vote-seeking function for…
This study explores the characteristics of individuals affiliated with violent extremist milieus in Sweden, focusing on far-right, far-left, and Islamic extremist milieus. Firstly, by using a compilation of law enforcement and other Swedish population registers, we describe these milieus along a range of demographic, socioeconomic, criminal, mental health, and familial…
Different databases, initiatives and reports aim to capture the state of the terrorist threat to a given country or region. It is less often, however, that these products focus on counter-terrorism nor do they feature the views of frontline practitioners on terrorism. This ICCT report addresses the aforementioned gap. By…
