DCU Conflict Institute

Polycrisis: the current online threat picture

Prof Maura Conway, DCU Conflict Institute

The past five years have been extraordinarily turbulent. Between 2019 and today, Europeans have weathered a global pandemic resulting in widespread and lengthy societal shutdowns, the heating-up of a major inter-state war on our geographical doorstep, the rapid ongoing development and widespread take-up of generative AI, our Israeli near neighbours being subject to the most significant terrorist attack since 9/11, our Palestinian near neighbours thereafter subjected to a campaign of massive and largely indiscriminate violence, and increasingly obvious signs of climate breakdown. The present moment might therefore be characterised as one of ‘polycrisis’ (i.e., extremely harmful interrelated emergencies).

In many ways too, these years have opened to critique much previous work on (countering) radicalisation. Especially because the previous five year period (2014–2018) — some would say the previous 20 years — was almost wholly dominated by the threat from the so-called ‘Islamic State’ and violent jihadism more generally. And whilst the risks and threats posed by the latter have certainly not gone away, particularly outside of the Western context, a variety of other factors that have not been adequately addressed in recent years are now (back) in play. This is partly due to many policymakers, researchers and the media’s tendency to focus on the here-and-now without due regard to the past and future. 

These include the rise of the extreme right, the re-emergence of ‘established’ terrorist groups, such as Hamas; and the potential for ecoterrorism. Each of these crises have radicalising aspects and each have, separately and together, been profoundly influenced too by new media technologies, especially social media and messaging applications. And, increasingly, generative AI. 

The Covid 19 crisis and attendant shutdowns have widened the gulf been the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in Europe and globally. For many, the past five years have been characterised by curtailed access to housing, health, education, and stable employment. This widespread and seemingly increasing precarity is intertwined with growing political polarisation, inflammatory speech, mis- and disinformation, and conspiracies. Their amplification, especially online, will increase the possibility of political violence, including acts of terrorism. 

The plight of Palestinian civilians as a result of the Israeli military response to the 7 October Hamas attack has become a touchstone in Jihadist propaganda and will likely continue to be leveraged as a compelling component of their content, calls to violence, and recruitment for years to come—even were a ceasefire to be agreed or the conflict to cease—and thus likely to encourage terrorist plots and attacks in the EU and elsewhere. 

Additionally, developments in AI over the next five years have the capacity to supercharge the production of extremist and terrorist, especially conspiracist, text, image, audio, and video-based content around especially major ‘real world’ events, including elections; ongoing conflicts, including Israel-Gaza; and even natural occurrences (e.g., volcanic eruptions, solar events, climate change induced weather events). This activity will also call into question real and true content, leading to an enormously polluted and unstable information environment. 

The above could be exacerbated by not just the emergence of new online platforms and services attractive to extremists and terrorists but with no strategies in place to deal with them and other harms. Large tech companies—never mind medium, small, and micro companies—are no longer sufficiently well-staffed, due to the so-called ‘tech backslide,’ to respond effectively to known risks and threats. 

Macro-level priorities on which European countries should work more closely together for countering radicalisation in the coming five years therefore include: stemming polarisation, especially the rise of the extreme right, via economic means, including importantly increasing EU Member State populations’ overall wellbeing via provision of affordable housing, world-class healthcare, accessible education, and steady and sufficiently well remunerated employment. 

While there is plainly a diversity of views among EU member states on the present situation in Israel-Gaza and responses to it, resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an EU foreign policy priority. The EU therefore needs to come to an agreed position on ending the present violence and then steering a course, with partners, toward a new peace process. 

Sustained attention to climate issues across the bloc is also a necessity. Youth, in particular, are losing patience with what they view as politicians’ empty words on this matter. Increasing climate-related weather events, along with inadequate concrete actions to address climate change have the capacity to grow and radicalise the climate movement. 

It is crucial too that the EU institutions continue to provide funding and other resources to those researching in the (counter-)radicalisation space, especially given the (1) fast-changing and ‘mixed, unclear, and unstable’ (MUU) nature of much contemporary extremism and terrorism, (2) increasing importance of countering extremist inflected mis- and disinformation by a variety of actors, including individuals, groups, and states, and (3) increasing prominence of the online sphere in radicalisation and the concomitant decrease in researcher access to online data. An important factor in respect of reversing the latter will be the full implementation of Digital Services Act (DSA) Article 40. 

This points to another important expectation that many people have of the EU, which is to swiftly develop—and export per the ‘Brussels effect’— appropriate regulations for the technology industry, including especially AI. Given the speed at which AI-based technologies are being developed and the potential for both existing tools and new ones to be used for a variety of harmful purposes, the further development of extremist and terrorist use of generative AI is a high priority threat to which these regulations will need to respond with alacrity.

Summing-up then, what Europe/Europeans have learned on (countering) radicalisation in the past five years ought probably to be that the context(s) out of which radicalisation arises and thus the direction(s) radicalisation takes can change quite rapidly. And those tasked with countering radicalisation must therefore be prepared to be agile in their response(s). Also not to be seduced by presentism and make every effort to take a 360˚ view of the threat environment.

This article first appeared in Spotlight: 13 years of RAN (Radicalisation Awareness Network). It is reproduced with permission.