CMDS Participates in EU Research Project on Online Violence

CEU's Center for Media, Data and Society is participating in VOX-Pol, a five-year, €5.1 million research consortium that will focus on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of violent online political extremism and responses to it.

The consortium brings together the world's leading researchers and research groups who are examining online political extremism and includes those researching internet governance and free expression, the intersection of political extremism and the Internet, online activities of the extreme right, potential for violent online radicalization, and related topics.

CEU's research within the project, led by CMDS Director of the Civil Society and Technology Project, Kate Coyer, is focused on assessing the role of internet service providers, mobile phone operators, and social media platforms in responding to government requests for data and content removal. Coyer and her group will evaluate policy responses at the EU and global level and consider the complexities of the relationship between technology, free expression, and policy that lie at the heart of the relationship between global security and human rights.

CMDS will lead research assessing the challenges of responding to violent online political extremism to consider ethical and political challenges, and provide a space for critical voices through workshops, publications, and a training academy to be held in summer 2015.

The European Commission FP7 project is led by Dublin City University and includes CEU, Oxford Internet Institute, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, Kings College London, University of Amsterdam, TNO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappel), and the Institute for Peace Research & Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH).

Project website: http://voxpol.eu/