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The Online Ecosystem of the German Far-Right

This report presents the findings of a research project of ISD’s Digital Analysis Unit about the alternative online-ecosystem of the far-right, including alternative social media platforms and alternative media outlets. While these platforms draw in a global audience this report focuses specifically on the German speaking and Germany-focused communities and outlets within this ecosystem. Drawing together ISD’s digital ethnographic work across dozens of forums and channels with the latest in machine learning and natural language processing, this report provides an overview over the size and nature of the far-right communities on these platforms the motivations for participating in these communities and assesses whether banning far-right groups from mainstream platforms leads to the displacement of their followers to ‘alternative’ platforms. We also analyse the role of alternative ‘news’ outlets in disseminating far right concepts, drawing on the‘Hate Observatory’, a joint initiative of ISD and the MIT Media Lab , based on their Media Cloud software, and compare the frequency and types of coverage of far-right themes in mainstream and alternative media. This report also recommends steps to be taken by tech companies, government, civil society and researchers to counter the far-right online.

Das Online-Ökosystem Rechtsextremer Akteure

Dieser Report präsentiert die Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojekts der Digital Analysis Unit am ISD (Institute for Strategic Dialogue) über das alternative Online-Ökosystem rechtsextremer Akteure, einschließlich alternativer Social-Media-Plattformen und alternativer Medien.

Be Internet Legends and Be Internet Citizens: Impact Report

This summary report presents the findings of an impact and process evaluation of these programmes, designed to ensure that they reached their target audiences, to identify whether the programmes helped drive positive behaviour change in the children and young people that went through the training, and to provide insights into what improvements should be made for future delivery.

Young Digital Leaders 2019: From Safety to Citizenship Online

This report presents the findings of Young Digital Leaders Phase 2, a digital citizenship education programme delivered by ISD and supported by Google.org. It was designed to empower young people across Europe to be positive and proactive members of their online communities, with roll-out across Bulgaria, Greece and Romania in 2019. It contains impact data and analysis from various participant groups – students, teachers and parents – as well as broader recommendations for digital citizenship policy and programming.

YouthCAN: The Many States of Activism

To help address the need for a more robust and youth-inclusive evidence base, ISD conducted a survey that was completed by 728 young activists globally to find out which barriers and opportunities had been most significant to their activism journey, as well as which skills they valued most.

Extracts From ISD’s Submitted Response to the UK Government Online Harms White Paper

On 8th April 2019, the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) released its much-anticipated Online Harms White Paper, setting out a range of proposed legislative and non-legislative measures to tackle online harms ranging from illegal (e.g. terrorist content) through to harmful but not necessarily illegal online behaviour.