By Moustafa Ayad, Anisa Harrasy, Mohammed Abdullah A. 

Researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) led a two-year investigation into the online media ecosystem of al-Shabaab and the Islamic State in Africa, analyzing the role of “independent news” outlets and their intersections with hundreds-strong networks of amplifier profiles on Facebook linked to a number of central pages identifying themselves as “media outlets” or “media personalities” operating in Somali, Kiswahili and Arabic. Researchers found that the network of support for al-Shabaab and Islamic State extended across several platforms, including decentralized messaging applications such as Element and RocketChat, and encrypted messaging platforms such as Telegram, as well as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.  A qualitative cross-platform analysis showed the most active, networked, and multilingual ecosystem of support for al-Shabaab and the Islamic State existed on Facebook, where profiles and pages classified as “media outlets” were sharing terrorist content openly and eschewing private groups and profiles. The content that ISD researchers observed through the networks is often linked to “media” and “media personality” pages in Somali, Kiswahili and Arabic, and not only violates the platform’s community guidelines, but also points to language moderation blind spots that have been previously documented by journalists as well as whistleblowers.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2022. 22p.

By Elise Thomas, Kata Balint

This research documents how YouTube’s algorithms contribute to promoting misogynistic, anti-feminist and other extremist content to Australian boys and young men. Using experimental accounts, this research tracks the content that YouTube, and their new ‘YouTube Shorts’ feature, routinely recommends to boys and young men. This short-term, qualitative study involved analysing algorithmic recommendations and trajectories provided to 10 experimental accounts. As the study progressed, each account was recommended videos with messages antagonistic towards women and feminism. Following the recommendations and viewing and liking the suggested content resulted in more overtly misogynist ‘Manosphere’ and ‘incel’ content being recommended. The study found that while the general Youtube interface recommended broadly similar content to topics the accounts originally engaged with, the new shorter video feature, called YouTube Shorts, appears to operate quite differently. Shorts seems to optimise more aggressively in response to user behaviour and show more extreme videos within a relatively brief timeframe. On Shorts, all accounts were shown vastly similar and sometimes even the same specific content from right-wing and self-described ‘alt-right’ content creators. The algorithm did not make any distinction between the underage and adult accounts in terms of the content served.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2022. 24p.

By Henry Tuck, Jakob Guhl, Julia Smirnova, Lea Gerster and Oliver Marsh

Harmful actors use an ever-expanding range of digital spaces to spread harmful ideologies and undermine human rights and democracy online. Understanding their evolving ideas, online networks and activities is critical to developing a more comprehensive evidence base to inform effective and proportional efforts to counter them. But creating that evidence base can challenge the technical capabilities, resources, and even ethical and legal boundaries of research. We are concerned that all these may be getting worse, just as the options for spreading harm online increase. It should therefore be of concern that in many instances it is increasingly hard to conduct digital research in a systematic, ethical and legal manner. This results in a situation where difficult trade offs have to be made between competing goods, including the desire to understand and mitigate harmful content and behaviour online, the preservation of privacy and the adherence to legal agreements. We argue in this report that this does not need to be the case; solutions are available,…

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2023. 60p.

By Ciarán O’Connor

This report aims to provide an in-depth analysis on the state of extremism and hate on TikTok. It is the culmination of three months of research on a sample of 1,030 videos, equivalent to just over eight hours of content, posted on the social media platform. These videos were used to promote hatred, as well as glorify extremism and terrorism. ISD set out to examine the state of hate and extremism on TikTok in two ways. The first objective involved analysing how individuals or groups promote hateful ideologies and target people on the platform based on numerous protected attributes such as ethnicity, religion, gender or others. Second, using the same framework, ISD investigated how features on TikTok like profiles, hashtags, share functions, video effects and music are used to spread hate. This report seeks to start a conversation around how platforms like TikTok can improve their own practices to protect users from harm. Additionally, it underscores the clear need for independent oversight of such platforms, which currently leave users and the wider public open to significant risks to their health, security and rights.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2021. 57p.

By Ciarán O’Connor

In collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center, ISD conducted research to examine the use and misuse of YouTube Super Chats, a tool that allows creators to monetise comments in their livestream chat feeds, that are an increasingly important source of revenue for both YouTube and creators on the platform. The report features three case studies examining popular political commentary and content channels; Timcast IRL, The Young Turks and Right Side Broadcasting Network. In the past, Super Chats have been used by extremists on the platform as a source of generating revenue and, as this report demonstrates, Super Chats continue to enable creators and YouTube to profit from comments that promote violence, conspiracy theories, misinformation and hate. The report features three case studies of popular YouTube highlights YouTube’s failure to effectively enforce its own community guidelines on Super Chats and includes recommendations on how the platform can address this enforcement gap.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2022. 18p.

By Ralph Reader

FROM THE COVER: It is said that all Scouts ear partly crazy. To show that it is at least true fo himself, R. R. has written a crazy book. But as with all he writes, again and again he will pull the reader up with a jerk and make him think about himself and his boys and the Movement generallv. Ralph lets off a lot of fireworks. but by their light we are enabled to see Scouting better.

London. The Boy Scouts Association. 1950. 135p. USED BOOK

By Cape. W. E. Johns

Another in the Biggles series glorifying war and vilifying enemies. . “In which Air Detective-Inspector Bigglesworth takes leave from the Special Air Section Scotland Yard to join the Foreign Legion, and has an adventure involving an old friend, an even older enemy and a near fatal trip to the desolate Valley of the Tartars in Kurdistan.”

London. Hodder and Stoughton. 1954. 198p. USED BOOOK

By R. M. Ballantyne

"The Young Fur Traders" is a children's adventure novel by Scottish author R. M. Ballantyne, first published in 1856. Set in the American Old West, this exciting tale is full of action and daring-do, making it ideal for children with an interest in the Wild West and American history. .

Melbourne. Australia. A Herald Classic. Colorgravure Publications. Originally published 1851. 1950. 223p

By J. F. C. Westerman

FROM THE COVER: When JohnWentleyunder- took to fly a British Secret Service agent to a forbidden part he little imagined what would result from his escapade. How he foiled an attempt by a dangerous and un- scrupulous enemy to steal the plans of his recently invented aero engine, took part in two thrilling aerial ducls, and fought against terrific odds to regain the safety of the Swiss border--with secrets in his possession on which de-pended the very existence of the British Empireis excitingly told by one of the foremost writers of boys' adventure stories.

London. The Children's Press. 1930s. 211p. USED BOOK

By The Author Of "Grumbling Tommy," Etc.

Late 19th century morality story for young persons.

London: S. W. Partridge & Co. 1884. 110p. USED BOOK

By C. Serjeant

A boys adventure book linking Christian life to war…FROM CHAPTER 1:

“"Yes, mother. And you remember what he said about being good soldiers of our Lord, don't you?"

"I'm afraid I didn't hear quiteall the sermon," she said, trying to speak lightly. "I wish," she added to herself, "that Jack would stop talking about such things. Especially in public. It would be frightfully embarrassing if he began to discuss religion in front of Lady Hardcastle or Mrs. Lyle-Gault. I'm not sure that they wouldn't think it a joke.'

"Well, mother,"Jack was saying, "that was what his sermon was about--being good soldiers-and somehow I felt I wanted to be one of them-and I am, mother."

London. Pickering & Inglis Ltd. 1932. 67p. USED BOOK

K. M. Macleod

A boys book heralding the wonderful role of the Christian missionaries of imperialism.

FROM THE COVER: but what can the boys join:" A new school teacher, Miss Stanley, arrives, and has an unkind trick played on her by Derry. She, however, starts a company of Life Boys, under the Great Leader, Jesus Christ, and to Derry's surprise he is allowed to join. They soon christen Miss Stanley, "The Skipper," and the story abounds with Life Boy adventures, until a Mr. Wardic arrives from Central Africa, and falls in love with The Skipper. The Life Boys form the guard of honor at the wedding which folows, and the story ends with The Skipper leaving a s "Mrs. Wardic" to be a foreign missionary in Africa, and hoping to form a company of Life Boys there of little African boys.”

London. Pickering & Inglis Ltd. 1934. 69p. USED BOOK

By Arthur Catherall

Classic how-to book for Boy Scouts conveying all the skills needed for leadership, survival and success in war. Inspired, of course, by the writings of Baden Powell who cut his war teething the Boer war. FROM THE COVER: “ They were an odd gang, Af,l Joe, Dick, and Gyp; but once they got the idea of Scouting they were the staunchest friends that anyone could ask for. Their Patrol Leader set a high standard of courage and endurance, and the others one by one played a loyal part in the many daring rescues and thrilling episodes that were to follow- adventures which will be the envy of every Scout.

London. Butterworth Press. 1949. 120p. USED BOOK

By Captain W. E. Johns. Illustrated By Alfred Sindall

A boys’ book from the classic series heralding World War 2, and highlighting the excitement and attractiveness of war..

FROM CHAPTER 1: “ PETER FORTYMORE RECEIVES BAD NEWS. THERE was a pensive, almost wistful, expression on the face of the Honourable Peter Fortymore as, with his chin cupped in his hands, he sat at his study window and stared out across the deserted, moonlit playing-fields of Rundell School, where for five years he had been a pupil. The door be- hind him opened, but he did not turn, for he knew from the heavy, deliberate footsteps that the new- comer washis friend and room-mate, Dick Ripley, known throughout the upper school as Rip…”

London. Geoffrey Cumberlege Oxford University Press. 1950. 245p

By Captain W. E. Johns

The classic boys’ books trumpeting the attraction and excitement of war, especially World War 2.

FROM CHAPTER 1: ““Air-Commodore Raymond, Chief of the Air Section of Scotland Yard, greeted his operational staff from behind a paper-littered desk, as, in obedience to his invitation, they filed into his office.

" Pull up some chairs," he requested. "This is only in the nature of a conference, and, strangely enough, for once there's nothing urgent about it. Help yourselves to cigarettes-we may be some time." He pushed the box forward.

London. Holder and Stoughton. 1954. 162p. USED BOOK

By Amy Sodaro 

Through a global comparative approach, Amy Sodaro uses in-depth case studies of five exemplary memorial museums that commemorate a range of violent pasts and allow for a chronological and global examination of the form: the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC; the House of Terror in Budapest; the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Rwanda; the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile; and the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York. Together, these case studies illustrate the historical emergence and global spread of the memorial museum and show how this new cultural form of commemoration is intended to be used in contemporary societies around the world emerging from widely divergent forms of political violence.

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018. 227p.

By Jason E. Pierce

In the early nineteenth century, critics like Zebulon Pike and Washington Irving viewed the West as a “dumping ground” for free blacks and Native Americans, a place where they could be segregated from the white communities east of the Mississippi River. But as immigrant populations and industrialization took hold in the East, white Americans began to view the West as a “refuge for real whites.” The West had the most diverse population in the nation with substantial numbers of American Indians, Hispanics, and Asians, but Anglo-Americans could control these mostly disenfranchised peoples and enjoy the privileges of power while celebrating their presence as providing a unique regional character. The first comprehensive study to examine the construction of white racial identity in the West, Making the White Man’s West shows how these two visions of the West shaped the history of the region and influenced a variety of contemporary social issues in the West today. 

Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2016. 323p.

By  Werner Riess

This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness regarding the definition of violence. But in daily life, Athenians had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They did so by enacting a discourse on violence in the performance of these genres, during which complex negotiations about the legitimacy of violence took place. Since discourse and reality were intertwined and the discourse was ritualized, actual violence might also have been partly ritualized. By still respecting the on-going desire to harm one’s enemy, this partial ritualization of violence helped restrain violence and thus contributed to Athens’ relative stability.

Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co,  2012.  492p.

By David Brion Davis

Homicide has many social and psychological implications that vary from culture to culture and which change as people accept new ideas concerning guilt, responsibility, and the causes of crime. A study of attitudes toward homicide is therefore a method of examining social values in a specific setting. Homicide in American Fiction, 1798–1860 is the first book to contrast psychological assumptions of imaginative writers with certain social and intellectual currents in an attempt to integrate social attitudes toward such diverse subjects as human evil, moral responsibility, criminal insanity, social causes of crime, dueling, lynching, the "unwritten law" of a husband's revenge, and capital punishment. In addition to works of literary distinction by Cooper, Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe, among others, Davis considers a large body of cheap popular fiction generally ignored in previous studies of the literature of this period. This is an engrossing study of fiction as a reflection of and a commentary on social problems and as an influence shaping general beliefs and opinions.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 196f 367p.

By Jorge Luis Borges

From the cover: ". unquestionably the most brilliant South American writing today. . .one of the genuine prose talents of our pe- riod. Written with a classical economy of means and under the control of a mind of wide culture and deep sensitivity, his stories will continue echoing in the minds of his readers as do those of Franz Kafka." -Herald Tribune Books

NY. Grove Press. 1962. 164p. USED BOOK. CONTAINS MARK-UP.