This briefing brings together the observations of a coalition of organisation who monitored the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections to identify distortion, disruption or interference campaigns and the technology companies response to them. You can read more about ISD's work monitoring the 2019 EU Elections in our interim report, published 24th May 2019.
The research series Hate Speech and Radicalisation on the Internet provides interdisciplinary insights into the current developments of extremist activities on the internet. With the aid of expert contributions from all over Germany, the psychological, political, anthropological and technological aspects of online hate speech and radicalisation will be considered and recommendations will be made for political leaders, social media platforms as well as NGOs and activists.
The rise of coordinated attacks on the foundations of liberal democracy continue unabated across Europe. In the United Kingdom, fringe groups and ideologues continue to challenge the government and the tech sector as they promote xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and extremism. By doing so, they continue to inflame community tensions and create division and polarisation between citizens.
Through the Youth Civil Activism Network (YouthCAN), our teams have been working with young people who consider themselves civically engaged and interested in preventing and countering violent extremism in their communities. This report makes recommendations for overcoming the barriers to online youth civic engagement, based on our work resourcing and supporting young activists from 14 countries across Western and Eastern Europe.
ISD uncovered a range of digital influence campaigns targeting the European Parliamentary elections through a mix of social media mapping, undercover online reporting and media monitoring. This interim briefing paper addresses who is behind these malign influence operations and analyses the techniques they use. It also assesses the record of the tech companies in addressing these threats to electoral integrity.
The advent of new communication technologies and their ubiquity has many benefits for information sharing at a global level. However, these new technologies have also created new challenges which our societies are now faced with: the spread of disinformation, manipulation and online hate. This report assesses the Sens Critique pilot programme which took place in Paris last year.
A combination of social media analysis, network mapping and investigative reporting carried out by ISD’s Digital Research Unit found that far-right conspiracy and misinformation networks used a suite of new and existing platforms to mobilise and coordinate election-related activities online and offline in the lead up to the Bavarian State elections in Germany in 2018.
This report presents the findings of a project that investigated foreign attempts to influence the 2018 Swedish elections online.
This joint report by ISD and German campaign group, ‘Ich Bin Hier’, maps the rise and nature of far-right hate speech in Germany. It combines quantitative data-analysis from Facebook comment sections with insights gained from ethnographic research in far-right chat groups.
This report reviews the state of extremist discourse and propaganda techniques used across the Kenyan social media landscape and share the results of a 16-month long study conducted to understand the capacity of Kenyan community service organisations (CSOs) to adapt to this changing landscape.
