A Foiled Plot in Texas: The Threat of Violent Fringe Online Networks

In this episode, we learn about violent far-right groups who are using the internet to plan and carry out real-world attacks. We hear how dangerous these fringe online communities really are and the work that’s going on behind the scenes to tackle this threat.

Join Anne Craanen as she speaks to Alex Newhouse, Deputy Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism (CTEC) and Director of Technical Research at the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC). He also has an MA in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute and MS in Analytics from Georgia Tech.

Anne is also joined by Matt Kriner, Senior Research Scholar at the CTEC and Managing Director at ARC. Matt is an intelligence analyst with almost a decade of experience researching and analysing US domestic violent extremists, transnational far-right extremism, and radicalisation.

We also hear from Deeba Shadnia who’s an Open-source Intelligence Analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, specialising in tracking how violent Islamists and the violent far-right exploit online spaces. Her background is in social media intelligence and she has previously worked on projects identifying state-backed influence operations online.

During the episode, our experts uncover the online network of neo-Nazi accelerationist groups behind a foiled terrorist plot in Texas, how they exploit the internet to spread their message, and consider how this translates to offline violence. We also hear what tech companies and organisations such as the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC) are doing to monitor and combat these online groups.  

To find out more about Tech Against Terrorism and our work, visit techagainstterrorism.org or follow us on Twitter @techvsterrorism, where you can find resources on this topic. 

You can learn more about the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism (CTEC) here.

You can find out more about the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC) here.