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Voices of Pakistani Youth: Lessons for Civil Society in the Development of Effective Counter-Narrative Campaigns

This report provides a series of evidence-based lessons for international NGOs, practitioners and activists working in Pakistan, to improve their capacities in developing counter-narrative campaigns to counter extremism and hate speech. Through YouthCAN, focus groups bringing together 70 young people from Islamabad explored how youth in the country understand extremism and hate speech: how they define these issues, where they encounter them, and who they see as responsible.

The Interplay Between Australia’s Political Fringes on the Right and Left: Online Messaging on Facebook

This research briefing outlines findings from an analysis of the far-right and far-left Facebook ecosystem in Australia in the first seven months of 2020. It analyses how the far-right and far-left discuss each other on Facebook and how narratives about the other side of the political spectrum shape the online activity of these groups. It also seeks to understand how central discussion about the ‘other side’ is to the far-right and far-left and how it fits within the broader online activities of these movements.

Krise und Kontrollverlust: Digitaler Extremismus im Kontext der Corona-Pandemie

Dieser Report analysiert die Netzwerke und Narrative deutschsprachiger rechtsextremer, linksextremer und islamistisch-extremistischer Akteure auf Mainstream- und alternativen Social-Media-Plattformen sowie extremistischen Websites im Kontext der Corona-Pandemie. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen: Extremisten aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz konnten ihre Reichweite seit der Einführung der Lockdown-Maßnahmen vergrößern.

Hoodwinked: Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour on Facebook

This briefing provides an overview of ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ (CIB) on Facebook. It reviews the information made public on CIB through Facebook’s own reporting between July 2018 and July 2020, assessing the scale of CIB across Facebook and Instagram, the profit Facebook has made from it and the intricacies of the networks themselves. Ahead of the US presidential elections, this briefing highlights the persistent threat of ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ on Facebook.

Bankrolling Bigotry: An overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups

Hatred is surging across the United States, threatening the safety, security and wellbeing of minority communities, and societal harmony writ large. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and Global Disinformation Index (GDI) have analysed the digital footprints of 73 US-based hate groups, assessing the extent to which they used 54 online funding mechanisms.

Disinformation briefing: Narratives around Black Lives Matter and voter fraud

This short briefing details the methodology and key findings of a study conducted jointly by the ISD team and Politico. Leveraging data from across social media platforms, this investigation seeks to understand online discussions around the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the issue of voter fraud ahead of the US Presidential election.

QAnon and Conspiracy Beliefs

The findings from this study provide important context for understanding the relationship between QAnon and the broader problem of conspiracy theory beliefs. A majority of Americans know nothing about QAnon and fewer than one-in-ten have a favorable view toward it; yet, a majority of those who recognize and believe in QAnon conspiracy theories are not QAnon supporters (most said they had not even heard of QAnon).

Public Figures, Public Rage: Candidate abuse on social media

This report presents the findings of our research into the scale of online abuse targeting Congressional candidates in the 2020 US election. We found that women and candidates from an ethnic minority background are more likely to receive abusive content on mainstream social media platforms. It provides recommendations and next steps which should be taken by technology companies and policymakers to protect candidates who are more likely to be targeted online and receive abusive content.

Hosting the ‘Holohoax’: A Snapshot of Holocaust Denial Across Social Media

This briefing paper examines the extent to which Holocaust denial content is readily accessible across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube. This paper also demonstrates how appropriately applied content moderation policies can be effective in denying dangerous conspiracy theorists a public platform by examining how Holocaust denial content has decreased significantly in the past year on YouTube.

Developing a Civil Society Response to Online Manipulation

This document presents a vision for a pan-civil societal response to online manipulation. In part, it argues, this will come down to capability: building a pooled detection capacity to function as a transparent, public interest alter­native to those built by the tech giants. In part, it will require new organisational philosophies and forms of co-operation, and in part new approaches to funding and support.