Exploring Patterns of Online Posting Behaviours among Non-Violent Group Actors

Online extremism has become one of the most pressing threats in the UK. Several violent episodes occurred over the last decade – mostly perpetrated by online self-radicalised individuals. These individuals usually start their path towards violent extremism by accessing material posted by non-violent extreme groups, who hold the same ideology as their violent counterparts but refuse the use of violence. This study is the first to examine non-violent extremism across different ideologies (Islamism, far-right, and eco-radicalism) to identify common narratives and ideological appeals propagated online in the UK between 2016 and 2021. This timespan was selected to examine the posting behaviour of non-violent extreme group actors in the pre-/during and post-pandemic period. This chapter presents the findings on the dependencies between the narratives disseminated online by the following groups used as case-studies for this work, as representative of different ideological milieux , i.e. Britain First (far-right), 5Pillars (Islamists), and Earth First! (Eco-radicals).