Zusammenfassung

The nexus between terrorism and technology is socially and politically more relevant than ever. Almost every mobilisation and radicalisation process and every violent attack, whether carried out or prevented, has an online component to it. Researchers, not least those involved in GNET, are meeting head on the challenge of analysing these processes in difficult empirical online environments. Even when taking into account ever changing platforms and policies, as well as the shift towards ever more closed and encrypted spaces, there is abundant empirical data. This abundance creates challenges and opportunities of its own,1 yet there are also hard limits to and grey zones around what a researcher dealing with extremist online content can and is allowed to do, which brings in ethical and data protection considerations. Discussions of such topics gained much relevance in recent years and are particularly lively in international research consortia. While summarising the state of these discussions around ethics and privacy, this GNET report identifies the limits of and opportunities for research and formulates related recommendations for researchers and tech companies. It proceeds in three steps: first, it summarises some of the main ethical considerations that a researcher in this academic field should bear in mind; second, it provides an overview of the main data protection principles that are to be observed and highlights the opportunities for and balancing acts required of researchers in this regard; and third, it discusses the interplay between researchers, data sources and the policies of platforms, condensing in this context some key recommendations for researchers, tech companies and regulators. The most important points are: first, more cross‐platform access points and databases would provide incentives for a broader and more vibrant research field; second, badly needed international research collaboration around analysing extremist online content would benefit from greater international harmonisation and a convergence of data protection rules; third, data protection regimes should not be seen as inconveniences but as enabling research by providing a clearer demarcation of what is and is not possible; and, lastly, the dynamic empirical field requires regular mechanisms of exchange between tech companies, researchers and regulators to adapt policies, habits and legal frameworks in a way that does justice to the social and political relevance of the nexus between extremism and technology.