The Dark Side: Exploring Violent Extremism on the Dark Web

• In Event: Examining Terror and Extremisim Using On and Off-line Data

Abstract

The online presence of extremist groups has been considered a pressing issue by governments and law enforcement. It is widely understood the Internet has had an integral role in facilitating the activities and objectives of extremists groups. However, the extent to which these groups are exploiting the concealed part of the Internet known as the dark web remains unclear. There are growing concerns that extremists are utilizing the dark web and its sophisticated anonymity features to further advance their objectives. Developing tools to assist in the investigation of violent extremism on the dark web will be a challenging yet important step to monitor these activities. The current study employs a specially designed web-crawler to identify and extract extremist dark web content. Sentiment analysis and classification methods are used to conduct a detailed analysis of identified content. Preliminary findings indicate a lack of overt and explicitly violent extremist content on the extracted sites. However, the results suggest much of this content could be viewed as implicit support for extremist activities.

Authors

• Julianna Mitchell, Simon Fraser University

• Richard Frank, Simon Fraser University

• Garth Davies, Simon Fraser University

• Bryan Monk, Simon Fraser University

• Tahsin Zulknarnine, Simon Fraser University