"Given the Internet’s potential for full-spectrum surveillance and information disruption, the marshaling of computer networks represents the next stage of cyberwar. Indeed, it is upon us already. The recent Stuxnet episode, in which Israel fed a malignant computer virus into Iran’s nuclear faci
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lities, is one such example. Penetration into US government computer systems by Chinese hackers-presumably sponsored by the Chinese government-is another. Together, they point to a new era in the evolution of human conflict. In Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know, noted experts Peter W. Singer and Allan Friedman lay out how the revolution in military cybernetics occurred and explain where it is headed. They begin with an explanation of what cyberspace is before moving on to discussions of how it can be exploited and why it is so hard to defend. Throughout, they discuss the latest developments in military and security technology. Singer and Friedman close with a discussion of how people and governments can protect themselves." (Publisher description)
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"A number of international organisations and NGOs suggest strategies for countering hate speech, but there is limited evidence of successful interventions. There is a general lack of impact evaluations of interventions to counter hate speech. When impact is measured it tends to be done in the short-
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term, for example by looking at feedback from individuals involved in conferences, rather than measuring behavioural change or changes in attitudes. Moreover, claims about the impact of specific interventions are often made by the organisations running the interventions and are unsubstantiated." (Page 3)
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"The civil war in Syria is the most important propaganda topic for Islamists in Germany at the moment. Even German youngsters have already followed the calls, left their homes to join the fight and have been killed. When recruiting new followers, the jihadists use videos as a central element for spr
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eading their Islamistic ideas and inciting to the armed struggle against 'non-believers'.
Platforms like Facebook and YouTube, very popular among young people, make these videos widely accessible even outside of the spectrum of Islamist movements. This in-creases the risk for children and youngsters of stumbling across Islamist's ideas, hatred and depictions of extreme violence. [...] Many videos rely on an emotionalizing effect with images of children suffering or dying. The use of close-ups of faces contorted by pain, serious injuries or even severed limbs is very common. The producers of these clips emotionally ap-peal to the empathy, sense of justice and protective instinct of the recipients. Very often, Islamists directly approach young men with slogans like 'Where are the lions? Where are the men? Where are you?' and try to make more young Muslims shoulder responsibility for 'their brothers and sis-ters' and support them in their fight.
The drastic images make the Muslim audience feel guilty: If they do not actively help in this crisis situation how should they stand trial before Allah? As the minimum form of sup-port, Islamists demand from them to become aware of their Muslim identity and to comply with the rules of the funda-mentalist groups." (Page 1)
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"Das Radio galt in Russland lange als Biotop – ein Rückzugsraum für professionellen Journalismus. Die Berichterstattung über den Krieg in der „Volksrepublik Donec’k“ offenbart jedoch das Gegenteil. Manche Radiosender begreifen sich als Verlautbarungsorgane der Aufständischen, Moderatoren
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wirken als Agitatoren. Sie gehören zur neosowjetischen Generation der 20- bis 30-Jährigen. Das ist die Generation Putin. Doch am Mikrofon sind sie längst keine Putinisten mehr, sondern viel radikalere Revanchisten vom Schlage Girkins." (Abstract)
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"Based on the case study of the cyber war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, this paper is a theoretical deliberation in an attempt to illustrate connection between the Digital Divide and cyber security. Through a qualitative study of cyber warfare between the two countries, one on the devel
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oped and one on the underdeveloped side of Digital Divide, it shows that disadvantaged states are subject to cyber insecurity. As a result, even though relatively low dependence of their vital systems on online networks supposedly makes them less vulnerable to cyber offensives, disruptions to communication infrastructures cause these states turn dysfunctional. To test the dependence of cyber security on Digital Divide, this paper also reviews other instances of coordinated cyber-attacks between countries, but in these cases, with both parties digitally advanced (Russia vs. Estonia, China vs. USA). These cases show that differences in states’ capabilities and available resources allowed them to withstand and relatively quickly repel cyber offensives without outside support and great harm. The general conclusion is that country’s position along Digital Divide translates into the level of that country’s cyber security, which serves as a litmus test for the level of its cyber power that, in turn, is indicative of the country’s strategic political standing among other states." (Abstract)
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"Visual images have been a central component of propaganda for as long as propaganda has been produced. But recent developments in communication and information technologies have given terrorist and extremist groups options and abilities they never would have been able to come close to even 5 or 10
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years ago. There are terrorist groups who, with very little initial investment, are making videos that are coming so close to the quality of BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] or CNN [Cable News Network] broadcasts that the difference is meaningless, and with access to the web they have instantaneous access to a global audience. Given the broad social science consensus on the power of visual images relative to that of words, the strategic implications of these groups' sophistication in the use of images in the online environment is carefully considered in a variety of contexts by the authors in this collection." (Publisher description)
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"Der Umgang mit den Relikten nationalsozialistischer Propaganda ist insbesondere in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland heftig umstritten; dies zeigen gerade die Diskussionen um eine wissenschaftliche Edition von Hitlers 'Mein Kampf'. Die Aufsätze des Bandes beschäftigen sich mit verschiedenen Propagan
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damedien des Nationalsozialismus sowohl im Hinblick auf ihre historische Wirksamkeit als auch vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Relevanz im heutigen geschichtskulturellen Diskurs über die Vergangenheit. Neben Hitlers Schrift 'Mein Kampf' und deren Rezeption in den Nachkriegsgesellschaften der Bundesrepublik, den Niederlanden und Israel widmen sich die einzelnen Aufsätze der nationalsozialistischen Tagespresse, verschiedenen Spielfilmproduktionen, der umstrittenen Ausstellungspraxis von NS-Sachzeugnissen und den von bundesrepublikanischen TV-Dokumentationen genutzten Ausschnitten aus den NS-Wochenschauen. Der Band resümiert, welchen Ort diese Relikte des Nationalsozialismus in der europäischen Erinnerungskultur einnehmen und wie sich der schmale Grat zwischen Aufklärung und Anziehungskraft in den vergangenen 70 Jahren wandelte." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The Iraqi media sector is polarized, with news content often representing political positions. In a postconflict environment such as Iraq, this polarized content can become inflammatory, potentially inciting violence and diminishing the chances for Iraq to move forward in its transition to a peacef
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ul democratic society. The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania engaged three key parts of the media sector—Iraqi civil society media monitors, regulatory bodies, and news media—to jointly discuss and decide how best to minimize inflammatory language, while still respecting press and expression freedoms. The collaborative effort included a media content analysis that identified, defined, and measured the prevalence of inflammatory terms appearing on the newscasts of the top five Iraqi satellite stations before Iraq’s national elections in 2010. The research findings were shared with Iraqi media, civil society media monitors, and regulatory bodies to assist them in preventing inflammatory reporting. Using a set of guidelines developed by Iraqi media stakeholders and USIP, a pilot group of influential news directors, media regulators, and civil society media monitors created a style guide for conflict reporting, which provides both a reference for media to minimize the use of inflammatory terms and a starting place for Iraqis to address the issues noted in the content analysis and improve media regulation and monitoring. Building on the self-regulatory tools developed, USIP is seeking to create a network of civic organizations across Iraq that can monitor media content on a range of potential conflict issues, from elections to oil to ethnic relations." (Summary)
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"The present analytical list of the most common clichés, stereotypes and examples of inaccurate (or reasonably questioned) information in the media of Armenia and Azerbaijan is based on the findings of a number of joint studies, administered by Yerevan Press Club and “Yeni Nesil” Journalists’
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Union of Azerbaijan. It also reflects the observations made of Azerbaijani and Armenian media in 2001-2010 by the two organizations." (Page 3)
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"Susan Benesch, human rights scholar, genocide prevention fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, has, over the last several years, developed an analytical framework for identifying ‘dangerous speech’
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that catalyzes violence (Benesch, 2008; 2013). According to Benesch, “hate speech” is a vague term that encompasses many forms of speech, only some of which may catalyze violence under certain circumstances. By creating a set of guidelines “for monitoring speech and evaluating its dangerousness, i.e., the capacity to catalyze violence by one group against another,” Benesch aims to inform policies that reduce incitement to violence through speech while protecting free speech (Benesch, 2013). Among questions about these ambitious guidelines were how they could be used to make audiences more skeptical of incitement and therefore less likely to succumb to it. In the summer of 2012, Benesch teamed up with Media Focus on Africa (MFA) and the cast and crew of a Kenyan television comedy drama series, Vioja Mahakamani (referred to as Vioja throughout this report). The collaboration aimed to “inoculate” audiences against inciting speech, and make them more skeptical of it, by increasing understanding of what constitutes incitement to violence, the psychology behind incitement that helps prepare groups of people to condone or even take part in violence, and its consequences. This was accomplished through two avenues: 1) by applying her ideas through a medium that would entertain and educate the Kenyan public, and 2) by training the cast of the show so that they could become local agents of change, circulating this information outside the context of the television program. This evaluation was partially tasked with examining whether audiences did indeed become more skeptical of inciting speech." (Page 2)
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"The ability of individuals to openly speak their minds is a core principle not only of American journalism, but American democracy. Even when speech is insulting or disrespectful to others-speech that might run afoul of hate speech laws throughout Western Europe or be banned outright in much of the
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rest of the world-it is generally permitted in the United States. But the rise of the Internet and the instantaneous global communications it enables have raised a host of new questions about how to handle hate speech and other potentially offensive speech when it can be seen by audiences in other countries that do not share those values." (CIMA website)
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"The Freedom of Expression Institute sought to prepare a module on Hate speech in South Africa with the aim of providing basic insight on the framework of hate speech as an aspect of freedom of expression to individuals, communities, social groups and civil society in general. This comes out of the
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need to address remnants of the apartheid era institutionalised racism that have manifested themselves among certain communities and groups in the form of hate speech. There is a need to educate the wider public in efforts to clarify what exactly hate speech is and in that be in a position to address it decisively. The concept of hate speech makes reference to speech that attacks the person or group to whom it is targeted on the basis of hatred or incitement of harm. In South Africa hate speech provisions are still underdeveloped and there is a need to look to development through case law." (Preface, page 3)
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"For six months between November 2012 and April 2013, fifty citizen watchdog monitors carefully noted incidents of hate speech and dangerous speech broadcast by five radio stations in Kenya. It was part of Internews in Kenya’s Free and Fair Media (FFM) programme aimed at working with the media to
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ensure that they covered the General Election of 2013 fairly and responsibly. Known as Citizen Watchdog, the exercise was not so much one of policing as one of accountability – to check incidents of hate speech and dangerous speech on air in the run-up to the 2013 General Election, during the election, and afterwards. Citizen Watchdog ran parallel to Internews’ support to the media through its Free and Fair Media journalism training activities focused on conflict sensitive journalism practices. The five radio stations included KBC Radio Taifa (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation), three vernacular radio stations, and one Swahili broadcaster based in the coastal region. The findings of Citizen Watchdog showed a sharp decline in cases of dangerous speech documented over the six month period: from 20 in November 2012 to zero in April 2013." (Executive summary)
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"The government in Syria came to differentiate between political dissent and the civil society activism in which the new generation plays a vital role thanks to the use of social media. Unable to control the burst of online activity, Damascus was forced to focus on monitoring key dissenters and huma
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n rights activists rather than wasting time and resources on monitoring thousands of youth and civil society activists who are turning to web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and Twitter to promote change and development. Online social media, which virtually anyone can use from home, played a central role in the Syrian uprising and helped break the decades-old government media monopoly. But it helped the Syrian government crack down on activists." (Page 1)
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"Hindu nationalists defend the advent of a Hindu state in India, while projecting the universal appeal of their ideology. Their very territorialised yet universal claims have been finding particular resonance among migrant populations, particularly in North America. This study strives to go beyond c
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ontent analyses that foreground voices to focus on the network structure in order to highlight the new transnational practices of nationalism. Two main points emerge from this in-depth scrutiny. On the one hand, Hindu nationalist organisations have transferred their online activities mainly to the USA, where the Indian diaspora is 3.2 million strong and constitute therefore a prime example of long-distance transnationalist nationalism. On the other hand, the morphological discrepancies between the online and the offline networks point to new strategies of discretion developed to evade the gaze of authorities in countries of residence. The recourse to such cartographies thus becomes crucial not only in understanding what sectarian or illegal movements do but also what they seek to hide." (Abstract)
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"The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is increasingly being played out in parallel on the internet. Recently, a great deal of media attention has been devoted to a series of spectacular hacker attacks that caused dozens of Israeli and Palestinian websites to crash, including thos
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e of the secret service agencies Mossad and Shin Bet. However, for Israelis and Palestinians who are willing to participate in dialogue, the internet also offers much needed opportunities for contact and the peaceful exchange of ideas." (Page 6)
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