News & Insights

Revontulet Develops Crucial Canadian Election Insights with Digital Public Square
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

Revontulet Develops Crucial Canadian Election Insights with Digital Public Square

Revontulet’s mission is to build a safer world for all by providing the knowledge and tools you need to protect yourself and your stakeholders from terrorism and violent extremism. Digital Public Square (DPS) seeks to transform community engagement for the digital era. Together, Revontulet and DPS work to halt the spread of dis-, mis-, and malinformation to help people make more informed decisions about the online content they ingest.

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Nantes Knife Attack: Bespoke Extremism Requires New Strategies for Ideological Analysis
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

Nantes Knife Attack: Bespoke Extremism Requires New Strategies for Ideological Analysis

Historically, terrorist manifestos are ideologically coherent documents that justify violence, publicize grievances, inspire imitators, and immortalize the perpetrator. Justin P.'s L'action immunitaire exemplifies the recent shift towards fringe fluidity fueled by nihilism. It reveals more about his psychological state than his political vision. Eco-extremist rhetoric — claims about "globalized ecocide" and society as a "tumor" — wasn't connected to any specific political program. When he entered the classroom, he didn't target symbols of environmental destruction. He attacked a classmate with whom he reportedly had a positive relationship.

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Toxic Narratives on TikTok and X in Malmö
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

Toxic Narratives on TikTok and X in Malmö

From June 2023, leading up to the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö in May 2024, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of toxic narratives, their spread, and the tactics used to lend credibility to such narratives in Arabic and Swedish on TikTok and X in Malmö. 

Revontulet conducted the research on behalf of Nordic Safe Cities for the city of Malmö. In late February, Malmö published the report “Toxic Narratives on TikTok and X in Malmö.” 

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Revontulet at the Paris AI Action Summit
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

Revontulet at the Paris AI Action Summit

On Sunday, February 9th, we are excited to contribute to critical conversations about AI ethics and responsible technology with our partner, Humane Intelligence, at the AI & Society House. Revontulet will participate in panel discussions and have an expo booth. We will present on our previous work with Humane Intelligence's Bias Bounty to uncover visual extremist propaganda. We will also discuss our overarching work, thinking, and objectives concerning the evolving threats and opportunities AI offers.

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From All-American Girl to Anti-Hero: How Violent Extremists Have Targeted Taylor Swift
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

From All-American Girl to Anti-Hero: How Violent Extremists Have Targeted Taylor Swift

This August, two young girls and two adults were murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance event in Southport, UK. Shortly after that, Swift canceled three arena shows in Vienna due to a terrorist bomb threat from Islamic extremists. The freedom, joy, female camaraderie, and independence that Taylor Swift's concerts represent are thorns in the side of extremists.

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AI Bias Bounty in Partnership with Humane Intelligence
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

AI Bias Bounty in Partnership with Humane Intelligence

Humane Intelligence, a nonprofit organization dedicated to evaluating the societal impact of AI, has teamed up with Nordic counterterrorism group Revontulet to launch Bias Bounty 2, the second of 10 algorithmic bias bounty challenges, unfolding over the next year. This latest challenge focuses on counterterrorism in computer vision (CV) applications and will run from Thursday, September 26, 2024, to Thursday, November 7, 2024. The winners will share $10,000 in prizes and may have their work considered for Revontulet’s solutions suite. 

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On the Southport Attack
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

On the Southport Attack

On Monday, July 29th, we were left devastated by the brutal knife attack that cost the lives of three children in Southport and left several others in critical condition. The motive of the attacker remains unknown. What is known is that he targeted young girls who were celebrating life and friendship while dancing to Taylor Swift's music.

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Remembering July 22nd
Bjorn Ihler Bjorn Ihler

Remembering July 22nd

Thirteen years ago, 77 people were killed in the 2011 Utøya/Oslo terrorist attack in Norway. These days toward the end of July will always carry the weight of that day, of the trauma, pain, and damage caused, and of the memory of those we lost.

It is in their honor and in honor of all those who struggle to live on after terrorist attacks around the world we continue to fight back - to build the conditions for communities resilient to radicalization and to detect and disrupt terrorist activities.

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What we can learn from the first weeks of Musk’s Twitter-Takeover
Article, Insights Bjorn Ihler Article, Insights Bjorn Ihler

What we can learn from the first weeks of Musk’s Twitter-Takeover

Glitterpill’s informal slogan is “You moved fast and broke things. We’re here to help you fix it.” Our team feels it is worth examining Musk’s actions over the past couple of weeks as a lens to view social media companies’ values as they intersect with stakeholders’ concerns about where the tears in the social fabric have occurred and what we can do to repair them.

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