The previous chapter makes it clear that the Internet and communications technology have become important frontiers in the struggle against gender-based violence. Discussing, in particular, the everyday lived experience of violence against women online, it illustrated the extent to which online gender-based violence has been normalized as well as the direct linkages between online violence, offline harms, and intertwined structures of oppression based on patriarchy, Global North–South divides, and other social hierarchies. While Chapter 3 offered insight primarily into the experiences of domestic and interpersonal violence facilitated through online platforms, it left unaddressed the issue of how gender-based violence can be deployed by extremists using technology to further their own ends. The present chapter explores how online extremist violence both deploys gender discourse and uses gendered labour to further its end. This analysis looks primarily at the role of social media, but also addresses the role of messaging apps, decentralized platforms, and other related technologies.

A necessary first step in this exercise is to define both ‘violent extremism’ and ‘extremist violence’, and explore what these terms mean in a gendered context. The definition of extremism is contested and is not always linked explicitly to manifestations of physical violence. While extremism is often associated with radical ideological views, commentators have noted that holding or advocating such views does not necessarily lead to the practice of violence or to a decision to join an extremist group (Griset and Mahan 2002; Horgan 2009; Aly and Striegher 2012; Striegher 2015). Thus, violent extremism is often defined in opposition to terrorism. While ‘extremism’ denotes adherence to a radical ideology, and ‘violent extremism’ denotes adherence to an ideology that views violence as a suitable tool in the pursuit of ideological goals, whether extremist violence is also terrorism can be distinguished by whether an individual actually carries out violence and/or whether they are part of an organized group engaged in that practice (Striegher 2015; UNODC 2018). Extremism, then, is an appropriate conceptual framework for this chapter, which explores how gender-based violence is deployed by a combination of organized armed groups, diffuse extremist movements, and entities that fall somewhere in between.