On 10th April 2025, the Centre for Digital Trust and Society (CDTS) at the University of Manchester hosted an insightful seminar featuring Professor Jakob Demant from the University of Copenhagen. The event brought together participants from diverse disciplines, all eager to delve into emerging questions around how evolving digital landscapes are shaping hidden behaviours and opportunities for crime.
About the speaker: Professor Jakob Demant
Professor Jakob Demant is an internationally recognised scholar in online deviance and criminology, leading the Microsociology of Online Deviance (MOD) lab at the University of Copenhagen. His work combines netnography and cutting-edge digital tools (including the innovative Manuscrape.org) to study hard-to-reach illicit communities. With over 50 publications across top journals like Theoretical Criminology and British Journal of Criminology, he continues to push the boundaries of how we study online and offline deviant spaces.
Key Takeaways from the Talk
Professor Jakob Demant’s talk highlighted how young people increasingly use multiple, specialiSed online platforms to separate and sometimes deliberately hide parts of their digital lives, creating fragmented spaces that blur lines between open social media and hidden deviance. This shift fosters new pockets for criminal and harmful behaviours to thrive, driven by the unique features and communities of each platform. Drawing on his projects exploring extreme online content and hybrid digital youth crime, Demant underscored the urgent need for a more nuanced understanding of these evolving ecosystems to effectively address emerging risks and design better interventions.
Check out the seminar
Interactive Discussions: Attendees engaged in lively Q&A sessions, leading to insightful conversations on research impact and future challenges.
The University of Manchester's wider Digital Futures network is highly interdisciplinary and operates across the whole range of the University’s digital research - connect with us and keep in touch: