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DIGITAL DISINFORMATIONEstimating the Effects on the UK of State Information, Influence, and Interference Threats Using Digital Disinformation, Distortion, and Deception
There is no adequate methodology or framework for estimating the impacts and effects of foreign state information, influence, and interference effects on the UK. Without such a framework it is difficult for decision-makers to prioritize which events and incidents require responding to because of the harms they are causing.
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EXTREMISMUncovering Coded Antisemitism Online Takes Both Human Expertise and AI Automation
Hate speech can take a hidden form, using code words or terms understood only by like-minded people. Coded hate speech can evade online content censors and recruit people who might balk at more clearly discriminatory speech.
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EXTREMISMHollow‑Earth Myths and Nazi UFOs on TikTok Are Bringing White Supremacism into the Mainstream
Extremist content on social media does not exist in isolation. Instead, it lives in what researchers call “hybridized spaces”, where users move in and out of extremist discourse. In such spaces, borderline content, outright extremism, mundane trends and humor blend seamlessly – and participants may find their mainstream interests lead them to radical narratives.
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CONSPIRACY THEORIESConspiracy Theories Meet Real News: How QAnon Tries to Hijack the Internet
You’ve seen the hashtags: #love #vote #child. Are they as banal as they seem, or are they being used by the far right to attract unsuspecting readers?
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EXTREMISMOnline Hate Groups Sustain Their Messages By Repeating Powerful Stories or Routinely Adding New Allegations
Hate communities often flourish online for years, raising the question of how they persist. My research team has found that powerful stories keep members of a hate group galvanized, either by repeating the story over and over or by constantly adding fresh accusations and interpretations to it.
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POLITICAL VIOLENCEHow Influencers Indirectly Mobilize Action and Legitimate Violence
Influencers are key mobilisers of collective action, shaping narratives that create urgency, define group norms, and can indirectly legitimate violence without issuing explicit calls to action.
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SPYWAREThe Indo-Pacific Could Shape Control of the Growing Spyware Market
The market for commercial cyber intrusion capabilities (CCICs) is moving faster than the frameworks designed to govern it. What began as a niche ecosystem of surveillance vendors has evolved into a sprawling, fragmented industry.
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EXTREMISMStudy of Tommy Robinson's Social Media Reveals How Online Influencers Mobilize Supporters without Direct Calls to Action
Analysis shows how influencers shape public behavior and legitimize violence through narratives, not instructions. Far-right extremist Tommy Robinson “used emotional appeals and conspiracy narratives to set up a worldview where violence felt like a natural, even necessary response,” says one researcher.
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EXTREMISMAI and Extremist Propaganda: An Assessment
AI has rapidly accelerated the transformation of the global violent extremist landscape by acting as a force multiplier in the manufacturing and dissemination of extremist propaganda. This presents a broader set of challenges for states and reinforces the need for technologically grounded counter-violent extremist frameworks.
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DISINFORMATIONFrance Strikes to Address Misinformation Weakening Western Alliance
The key destabilizing feature of today’s information environment is no longer simply that democracies are targeted by adversaries’ misinformation and disinformation. Increasingly, the danger is coming from uninhibited partners in the allied ecosystem itself.
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SOCIAL MEDIASocial Media’: The Changing Tech of Terror
In the wake of the white noise generated by mainstream social media channels and apps, a new trend of ‘anti-social media’ has emerged in recent years, which seeks to abandon mainstream platforms, reduce screen time, and seek private, intimate, or even ‘analogue’ communication to avoid algorithm-driven polarization, surveillance and loneliness. But some of these so-called anti-social media platforms have also become off-the-wall mediums for disseminating extremist propaganda.
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SOCIAL MEDIAYour Social Media Feed Is Built to Agree with You. What If It Didn’t?
The feedback loop is an essential component of the architecture of the social media echo chamber: a space where familiar ideas are amplified, dissenting voices fade, and beliefs can harden rather than evolve. A new study points to algorithm design as a potential way to reduce echo chambers—and polarization—online.
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TRUTH DECAYWhy Are Older Adults More Likely to Share Misinformation Online?
Older adults tend to do well at identifying falsehoods in experiments, but they’re also likelier than younger adults to like and share misinformation online. Older adults have greater tendency to seek out, believe material that conforms to pre-existing views, expert says.
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TRUTH DECAYEmpowering Users to Discern Fact from Fiction in the Age of AI
A new project will investigate interventions that enable individuals to effectively harness AI while building the literacy needed to avoid scams and other forms of abuse.
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EXTREMISMFar-Right Extremists Have Been Organizing Online Since Before the Internet – and AI Is Their Next Frontier
How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? Far-right extremists have long pioneered innovative ways to exploit technological progress and free speech. Efforts to counter this radicalization are challenged to stay one step ahead of the far right’s technological advances.
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The long view
CONSPIRACY THEORIESConspiracy Theories Meet Real News: How QAnon Tries to Hijack the Internet
You’ve seen the hashtags: #love #vote #child. Are they as banal as they seem, or are they being used by the far right to attract unsuspecting readers?
POLITICAL VIOLENCEHow Influencers Indirectly Mobilize Action and Legitimate Violence
Influencers are key mobilisers of collective action, shaping narratives that create urgency, define group norms, and can indirectly legitimate violence without issuing explicit calls to action.
EXTREMISMUncovering Coded Antisemitism Online Takes Both Human Expertise and AI Automation
Hate speech can take a hidden form, using code words or terms understood only by like-minded people. Coded hate speech can evade online content censors and recruit people who might balk at more clearly discriminatory speech.