Hate is in the Air: Defining, Identifying and Understanding Hate Speech and Radicalization Speech in Cyberspace

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

The Internet was created in order to facilitate multiple way communication between people from across the entire globe. However, almost fifty years after its creation, the Net has now become a special media in which the effects of any message can be much broader and greater both in time and space. Indeed, violent communication, and specifically hate and radicalization messages, have also found a way of spreading and broadening its impact through the Internet. Regarding the new range of diffusion of the Internet, and specially the new online social networks (e.g. Twitter, Facebook and online forums), the aim of this thematic panel is to: i) analyze the increased capacity of online hate and radicalization messages compared to communication in the earthly word, ii) discuss how the dissemination of messages of hate and radicalization works on the Net, and iii) study how online violent communication messages can be identified through new technological developments. In summary, this panel is aimed to present new mechanisms for identifying and understanding online violent communication, and more precisely online hate and radicalization.

Sub Unit

• Area V: Types of Offending / 22: Identity Theft and Cyber-Crime

Individual Presentations

• Assessing the Presentation of Ideological Messaging in Extremist Web Forums - Joshua D. Freilich, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Thomas J. Holt, Michigan State University; Steven M. Chermak, Michigan State University

• Online Channels for the Spread of Jihadist Ideology in the Europe of 2016 - Miguel Angel Cano Paños, Universidad de Granada; Samuel Rodríguez Ferrández, Universidad de Murcia

• Twitter After Charlie Hebdo: A Taxonomy Of Violent Communication In Cyberspace - Fernando Miró Llinares, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche; Elena Beatriz Fernández Castejón, Universidad Miguel Hernández

• Searching for a Virtual Needle in a Cyber-Stack: Identifying Radical Content in Online Discussion Forums - Ryan Scrivens, Simon Fraser University; Garth Davies, Simon Fraser University; Richard Frank, Simon Fraser University

Chair

• Fernando Miró Llinares, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche

Discussant

• Thomas J. Holt, Michigan State University