On 19-20 January, Akil Awan will be speaking in Brussels at the VOX-Pol's workshop on Ethics and Politics of Online Monitoring of Violent Extremism. He will be addressing policymakers and other stakeholders including civil society, Internet and technology companies, and law enforcement agencies
He will argue that Violent extremism and radicalisation are clearly growing problems that require concerted policy and security responses, if we are to deal with them effectively. However, before we can start to propose solutions, we have to ensure that i) we have consensus on what the actual problem is, and ii) that our proposed responses and solutions are grounded in empirical data, rather than anecdotal evidence or knee-jerk policymaker responses. He will argue that this is arguably not the case in both the presentation of radicalisation online as the problematic, and in the monitoring of online spaces as a response to it.
Ethics and Politics of Online Monitoring of Violent Extremism
Workshop Agenda
Monday 19 January
13:00-15:00: Session One
Chair: Ian Brown
Sadhbh McCarthy: The role of trust, insights and confidence on the use of OSINT (or SOCMINT) for intelligence purposes incl. in relation to the identification of violent extremism
Lydia Wilson: Distinguishing between violent groups: a case study comparing pro- and anti-ISIS fighters
Akil Awan: Problematising Radicalisation Online, and the implications for Internet Monitoring
15:20-17:30: Session Two
Chair: Maura Conway
Robindra Prabhu: Could Anders Behring Breivik been stopped with social media monitoring?
Danit Gal: Hamas’s Targeted Cyber-Jihadi Propaganda: When Open Source Intelligence Hits Close to Home
Andrea Cerase: Monitoring racist and xenophobic extremism to counter hate speech online:
ethical dilemmas and methods of a preventive approach
Tuesday 20 January
09:00-10:45: Session Three
Chair: Kate Coyer
Léa Steinacker: An analysis of German language Salafi Twitter networks to inform strategies
countering violent online extremism
Istvan Janto-Petnehazi: User-generated hate speech. The case of Romania
Benjamin Ducol: French anti-terrorism law and the securitization of the Internet: mapping a
security controversy in the age of global terrorism
11:00-12:45: Session Four
Chair: Maura Conway
TJ McIntyre: Public law oversight and the roles of private Internet actors in monitoring violent
online political extremism
Valentin Stoian: A comparative analysis of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice and the Romanian Constitutional Court on metadata retention
Rozemarijn van der Hilst: Protecting privacy in counter-terrorism online surveillance
13:30-15:00: Conclusions
Chair: Ian Brown
A report will be published following the event by the Oxford Internet Institute.