"Harmful actors use an ever-expanding range of digital spaces to spread harmful ideologies and undermine human rights and democracy online. Understanding their evolving ideas, online networks and activities is critical to the development of a more comprehensive evidence base to inform effective and
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proportional efforts to counter them. But generating that evidence base can challenge the technical capabilities, resources and even ethical and legal boundaries of research. We are concerned that these issues may be worsening just as the options for spreading harm online increase. This difficulty in conducting digital research systematically, ethically and legally results in a situation where trade-offs have to be made between competing priorities, including the desire to understand and mitigate harmful content and behaviours online, the preservation of privacy and the adherence to legal agreements. We argue in this report that this does not need to be the case; solutions are available, and actions should be taken as soon as possible to ensure a future-proof scenario in which researchers have the tools to monitor, track and analyse harmful content and behaviours systematically, ethically and legally. This report outlines the findings from the research phase of a project by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and CASM Technology; it is funded by Omidyar Network. The aim of the project is to identify and test research methodologies for monitoring and analysing small, closed or hardly moderated platforms. The report provides applied examples and evidence for the limitations and dilemmas encountered by researchers. In three short research case studies, focusing on Telegram, Discord and Odysee (in German, English and French respectively), we seek to apply different methodological approaches to analyse platforms that primarily present technological, ethical and legal, or fragmentation barriers." (Executive summary)
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"This report outlines the findings from the initial scoping phase of a project supported by a grant from Omidyar Network and launched by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and CASM Technology to identify online spaces used by extremist, hate and disinformation actors and communities as they
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increasingly move away from mainstream social media platforms. The report outlines the key barriers posed by these platforms to researching and mitigating harmful content and behaviours, and reviews existing research methodologies and tools to address these barriers. Finally, the report presents possible future scenarios for the evolving online ecosystem, and proposes a series of initial recommendations for policy-makers, platforms and the research community." (About this publication)
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"This book explores the journalism coming out of the Afghan war from the frontline and from the greater comfort of the library. It is an unusual hybrid: the testimony of some of the best frontline correspondents of our era, much of it placed in appropriate historical contexts, alongside detailed aca
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demic analysis – and much more. It ranges from the poppy fields of Helmand province to New York via the Iraq War and the modern rebirth of “embedding”. It mixes action, reflection and analysis and focuses on some of under-reported groups such as women and the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan.
It has its origin in a conference in Coventry in March 2010 put on as part of the university’s Coventry Conversations series (with financial support from the Pro Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of Business) in conjunction with the BBC College of Journalism and journalism.co.uk (the website forum for digitally active journalists). All of that conference can be seen and heard on bbc.co.uk/journalism and Coventry.ac.uk/itunesu. Many of the contributors to this book took part in that conference though some extra pieces have been specially commissioned. The war in Afghanistan will soon be coming up to its tenth anniversary.
Operation Enduring Freedom started on 7 October 2001 as a response to the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. Freedom in Afghanistan has far from endured in that decade. There are today 100,000-plus US troops, 10,000-plus British troops and 17,000 from ISAF allies – including Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Canada.
US intelligence admit that there are now fewer than 100 al-Qaeda (the reason for invading in the first place) fighters left in the country and that the Taliban could fight on for ever. British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons on 14 June 2010 after his return from his first official visit to Afghanistan that it was only the presence of the ISAF troops that kept al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan in numbers. The West is fighting a phantom and desperately searching for an exit strategy. The trouble is they will leave behind an Afghan government scarred by illegitimacy, corruption and more. The Killing Fields will continue for a while yet. Journalism has escaped comparatively lightly – just nine Western journalists killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Like all big stories, this war has attracted the cream of British journalistic talent especially the broadcast reporters. TV awards have been won on the field of battle by the new Brahmins – the war corrs parachuted in and out of Helmand. The idea for the conference and for the book took hold when I judged the Royal Television Society News Programme of the Year Awards for 2009. All entries featured front line action from their stars. Many of them have contributed to this book." (Pages 3-4)
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