TCAP Insights: Patterns of Online Terrorist Exploitation

This report analyses the distribution of terrorist content across different online platforms.

The report draws on the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform’s unique dataset to identify at-risk tech platforms. It provides data-driven recommendations to improve their response to terrorist exploitation of their services.

Patterns of Terrorist Exploitation is the first 'TCAP Insights' report evaluating the distribution of terrorist content across different platforms types, sizes, and locations between 25 November 2020 and 19 January 2023.

The report draws on data taken from Tech Against Terrorism’s Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP), the world’s largest database of verified terrorist content made available to tech platforms.This report provides an assessment of at-risk tech platforms and offers recommendations to improve the response to terrorist exploitation of the internet.

KEY FINDINGS

• Of all tech platform types, file-sharing and archiving platforms were the most at risk of terrorist exploitation.
• Smaller tech platforms were most heavily exploited and removed a lower proportion of terrorist content than larger platforms.
• The majority of far-right terrorist content was found on messaging platforms.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TECH PLATFORMS

• Obstruct the dissemination of URL banks by utilising behaviour-based cues and moderation techniques already in place for spam material. Behaviour-based cues include abnormal posting volume, which can be picked up more easily by automated systems and require less human review than scanning outlinks for terrorist-related content.
• Use simple detection tools that flag key words and logos linked with terrorist entities for manual review.
• Provide an easily accessible contact point for users, law enforcement, governments, and initiatives such as the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform.

‘TCAP Insights’ is a series of research and policy analysis into patterns of terrorist use of the internet that harnesses the analytical power of the TCAP’s dataset.