Policymakers have invested considerable effort and research funding to understand the role of the Internet in radicalisation processes and attack planning. This includes approaches to identify radicalisation or “weak signals” for terrorist intentions in online behaviour. As a result, security authorities have become increasingly interested in approaches to computer science including Artificial Intelligence. Nevertheless, what results have research efforts thus far yielded? Can computer science prove useful? And what are the possibilities and limitations of automated tools?
Author: Robert Pelzer
Robert Pelzer is project manager of the department Security - Risk - Criminology at TU Berlin, where he is responsible for the research focus Radicalization and Terrorism Research. His research focuses on terrorism, political violence, policing, sociology of crime and religion, and methods of reconstructive social research.