Abhorrent violent materials: Regulations, responsibilities and restrictions on access for researchers vis-à-vis commercial actors

With social media becoming an increasingly popular data source for academic research, we consider the legal restrictions, modes of accessibility and responsibilities that come with analysing Abhorrent Violent Material online. This paper will consider the challenges that governments face in protecting citizens from exposure to such materials, as well as the potential for its exploitation by extremist organizations. At the same time, however, we will consider the obstacles this presents to researchers, where AVM scrubbing can result in incomplete data sets and risks findings which are unknowingly inaccurate, particularly for emerging scholars. We debate the avenues of access to individuals accredited with academic institutions to such data in the
advancement of empirical based research to analyse and potentially model risk assessment tools; as well as the commercialisation of data by organisations such as X and META. With the current directive by the Federal Court that Australia cannot extend its own bans on AVM to a global audience, international jurisdictions, and responsibilities globally will remain at the forefront of this debate.