How Extremists Organize & Radicalize Online: What Can We Do About It?

This is Episode 2 in a 6 part video series analyzing radical right extremists. You can watch episode 1 here.

Rantt Media has been partnered with the Centre For Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) for about 3 years now. We’ve published over 150 articles from CARR’s network of PhDs, historians, professors, and experts analyzing extremism and combating disinformation. Now, we’re doing a 6 part video series analyzing radical right extremism and discussing how we can tackle this growing threat.

We saw the culmination of the threat of radical right extremism at the January 6 insurrection and in an increasing number of terrorist attacks over the past several years. We take this threat seriously at Rantt and think it’s important for media organizations to feature extremism experts and researchers in their coverage.

In this episode, we have Ashton Kingdon, a Ph.D. candidate in Web Science at the University of Southampton and a fellow at CARR. We had a great conversation that ranged from online extremism, to Ashton’s time infiltrating far-right online networks, to the proactive steps governments should be taking to regulate emerging technologies. You’ll find time-stamps of what we discussed below:

Intro – 0:07
Ashton’s background and research findings – 1:07
Ashton spent 4 years going undercover in far-right networks – 2:59
Mainstream social media as the top of the funnel – 4:55
What tactics are extremists using to radicalize online – 6:50
How societal factors contribute to online extremism – 9:12
Does de-platforming work? – 11:14
What it was like infiltrating Fascist Forge – 16:20
Violent terrorist recruitment online – 21:10
What social media companies can do to combat extremism – 25:40
What regulations can lawmakers pursue on tech companies to combat extremism – 28:40
Proactive regulations for evolving technologies – 32:10
Quantum computing and how it can be exploited- 34:40
Technology should be intentionally created with safeguards – 38:40
Nation-states like Russia exploiting tech – 40:43
Lessons learned from past 10 years of tech – 42:50
Ethical AI – 45:20
Democracy vs. Autocracy – 47:28
Ashton’s recommendations of what we should be watching in tech – 50:34
QAmoms – 52:10