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Hate and extremism cannot be controlled globally without understanding how they operate at scale. Both have escalated dramatically during the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine-Russia wars. Here we show how the online hate-extremism system is now…
The 2025 Bondi Beach mass-shooting was perpetrated by individuals inspired by ISIS (Islamic State) propaganda that increasingly featured anti-Semitic hate content following the October 2023 start of the Israel-Palestine war. Similar stories…
I present a unified discussion of several recently published results concerning the escalation, timing and severity of violent events in human conflicts and global terrorism, and set them in the wider context of real-world and cyber-based…
Research shows that various social media platforms on Internet such as Twitter, Tumblr (micro-blogging websites), Facebook (a popular social networking website), YouTube (largest video sharing and hosting website), Blogs and discussion…
This paper explores the growth of online mobilizations using data from the 'indignados' (the 'outraged') movement in Spain, which emerged under the influence of the revolution in Egypt and as a precursor to the global Occupy mobilizations.…
Online communities featuring 'anti-X' hate and extremism, somehow thrive online despite moderator pressure. We present a first-principles theory of their dynamics, which accounts for the fact that the online population comprises diverse…
Online hate is dynamic, adaptive -- and is now surging armed with AI/GPT tools. Its consequences include personal traumas, child sex abuse and violent mass attacks. Overcoming it will require knowing how it operates at scale. Here we…
With public information becoming widely accessible and shared on today's web, greater insights are possible into crowd actions by citizens and non-state actors such as large protests and cyber activism. We present efforts to predict the…
The recent wave of mobilizations in the Arab world and across Western countries has generated much discussion on how digital media is connected to the diffusion of protests. We examine that connection using data from the surge of…
User-generated content online is shaped by many factors, including endogenous elements such as platform affordances and norms, as well as exogenous elements, in particular significant events. These impact what users say, how they say it,…
Online social media allows individuals to cluster around common interests - including hate. We show that tight-knit social clusters interlink to form resilient 'global hate highways' that bridge independent social network platforms,…
Collectives adapt their network structure to the challenges they face. It has been hypothesized that collectives experiencing a real or imagined threat from an outgroup tend to consolidate behind a few influential group members, and that…
Recent grassroots movements have suggested that online social networks might play a key role in their organization, as adherents have a fast, many-to-many, communication channel to help coordinate their mobilization. The structure and…
Floods affected more than 2 billion people worldwide from 1998 to 2017 and their occurrence is expected to increase due to climate warming, population growth and rapid urbanization. Recent approaches for understanding the resilience of…
In the summer of 2021, users on the livestreaming platform Twitch were targeted by a wave of "hate raids," a form of attack that overwhelms a streamer's chatroom with hateful messages, often through the use of bots and automation. Using a…
Recent years have seen increased interest in the online presence of extreme right groups. Although originally composed of dedicated websites, the online extreme right milieu now spans multiple networks, including popular social media…
Social media conversations frequently suffer from toxicity, creating significant issues for users, moderators, and entire communities. Events in the real world, like elections or conflicts, can initiate and escalate toxic behavior online.…
Now that so much of collective action takes place online, web-generated data can further understanding of the mechanics of Internet-based mobilisation. This trace data offers social science researchers the potential for new forms of…
Climate activism is crucial in stimulating collective societal and behavioral change towards sustainable practices through political pressure. Although multiple factors contribute to the participation in activism, their complex…
Natural hazards including floods can trigger catastrophic failures in interdependent urban transport network-of-networks (NoNs). Population growth has enhanced transportation demand while urbanization and climate change have intensified…