New Podcast – Some More Terrorism, With Bjørn Ihler
We are honoured to welcome Bjørn Ihler, Director of the Sweden-based Khalifa Ihler Institute, as well as founder and CEO of consulting firm Revontulet in Norway. A survivor of the 2011 Utoya Island massacre, Bjørn is an internationally recognised authority and speaker on the topic of terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC), and has been a major driver of collective efforts to prevent, identify, track, and counteract terrorism both online and in the “real world”.
In the second installment of our conversations about terrorism, we continue our discussion of terrorism and extremism, talking about “fatigue” about the term “terrorism”, extremist groups and materials, and more. See here for part I of this series.
Notes and Links:
As always, we haven’t read all of these in their entirety, and the Wikipedia links are provided as-is, and only meant as a starting point for someone interested in more than just casual information.
05:40 “Global War on Terrorism” – https://www.brookings.edu/articles/nasty-brutish-and-long-americas-war-on-terrorism/
05:58 For example the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, numerous examples of “extraordinary rendition” and torture of terrorism suspects, we’ll leave this as an exercise for the viewer/listener.
07:39 Royal Commission report on the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings: https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/executive-summary-2/executive-summary
08:59 1996 Dunblane massacre – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre
09:01 1996 Port Arthur massacre – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)
09:05 1999 Columbine High School massacre – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre
09:35 2001 Zug parliament massacre – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_massacre
09:51 IS, Daesh – ISIS/ISIL is strictly speaking a region-specific part of IS
10:35 1995 GIA bombings in France – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_France_bombings
10:52 July 7 attacks in the UK – https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/about-us/about-us/our-history/london-bombings-of-2005/
10:57 Referring to the 1998 Irish Good Friday agreements that ended a lot of the Irish violence – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement
11:13 We are not going to link to any here, although in our opinion the Unabomber manifesto is at least worth a read
13:36 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Evans_(journalist)
13:39 Behind the Bastards on iHeart Radio – https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/
13:50 https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/the-man-trying-to-resurrect-8chan-52653860/
14:55 Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America – https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604375/mindfck-by-christopher-wylie/
17:57 Gamergate – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign)
18:01 Pepe the frog branded a hate symbol by ADL in 2016 – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37493165
18:20 Anti-Defamation League hate symbols database – https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbols/search
18:35 ((( Triple parentheses ))) (aka “Echo”) around a name/concept and the term “globalist” are often considered to be anti-semitic dogwhistles – https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/echo
18:42 Michael V. Hayden was director of the US National Security Agency (NSA) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hayden_(general)
18:50 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566537/the-assault-on-intelligence-by-michael-v-hayden/
19:04 “Astroturfing” – the creation of a fake “grass roots” (or authentic, organically driven) propaganda and influence campaign. So called because astroturf is fake grass…
19:18 Before you yell at us, I strongly recommend this book for some well researched and balanced historical context: https://iupress.org/9780253220707/a-history-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-second-edition/
20:15 https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/identitarians/
20:32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida
21:04 Alternative für Deutschland – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany
21:05 Freiheitliche Partei Österreich – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria
21:07 Sverigedemokraterna – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats
21:34 Partij voor de Vrijheid – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_Freedom. The latest polling I could find still has them with a lot of support, though – https://peilingwijzer.tomlouwerse.nl/
21:48 Magyar Polgári Szövetség – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidesz. A 2022 article about prime minister Viktor Orbán’s moves against Hungarian judicial independence – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/14/viktor-orban-grip-on-hungary-courts-threatens-rule-of-law-warns-judge
22:07 https://gnet-research.org/2024/10/28/in-sweden-a-domestic-troll-farm-tests-democracy/
23:48 Dallas Humber, a graphic artist, and Matthew Allison, a DJ https://www.propublica.org/article/matthew-allison-dj-terrogram-collective-boise-dallas-humber. Apparently Humber” created “fan art” for extremists and murderers. The network has since been taken down, but Tech against Terrorism has a paper that shows there are various other right wing extremist accelerationalist groups out there: https://www.techagainstterrorism.org/hubfs/CTEC__TAT-Accelerationism-Report-.pdf (PDF).
Also see Mike Ma and “Harassment Architecture” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment_Architecture
Lastly, Bj contributed to the following analysis: https://gnet-research.org/2022/09/12/analysing-terrorgram-publications-a-new-digital-zine/
23:55 Nostalgia time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine
24:36 The Anarchist Cookbook and Poor Man’s James Bond – you can find them for yourself if you really want to, but as a caution, a lot of the recipes for explosives and other weapons are apparently as likely to blow off your own fingers (or do nothing at all) as actually work, you’ve been warned.
25:03 Ted Kaczynski (the “Unabomber”) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
25:07 1995 Oklahoma City bombing – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
25:50 https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics
26:01 Specifically, the town of Veles, (North) Macedonia: https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-macedonian-memes-american-midterms-b1f35f9df2ee and https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190528-i-was-a-macedonian-fake-news-writer for examples. Mainly done to drive ad revenue.
29:15 The Behind the Bastards episode on the history of the Swastika is also great – https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-behind-the-swastika-122033932/
35:40 Potter Stewart, 1964 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
35:54 Prof. Emily M. Bender. She’s a linguist who’s done a lot of good work outlining and explaining the limitations of LLMs – https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/
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