752 research outputs found
Automatic Detection of Online Jihadist Hate Speech
We have developed a system that automatically detects online jihadist hate
speech with over 80% accuracy, by using techniques from Natural Language
Processing and Machine Learning. The system is trained on a corpus of 45,000
subversive Twitter messages collected from October 2014 to December 2016. We
present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the jihadist rhetoric in the
corpus, examine the network of Twitter users, outline the technical procedure
used to train the system, and discuss examples of use.Comment: 31 page
The future of jihad: what next for ISIL and al-Qaeda?
This report examines what the rise of ISIL means for al-Qaeda and how will it react.
Overview
ISIL is a real threat and must be targeted, but al-Qaeda shouldnât be forgotten. Indeed, al-Qaeda should remain a key focus for international counterterrorism efforts. Itâs a resilient and resolute terrorist organisation, but itâs also weaker than itâs been for many years. We should use this brief opportunity to dismantle the organisation completely.
The report examines what the rise of ISIL means for al-Qaeda and how will it react. How will al-Qaeda seek to regain the oxygen of publicity thatâs central to terrorist organisations if theyâre to recruit, grow and, ultimately, challenge their enemies? Does the rise of ISIL signal the end of al-Qaeda or might al-Qaeda merge with ISIL, confront it head on or take some other course of action?
The authors explore four alternative futures for al-Qaeda and ISIL and conclude that a worrying scenario of âone-upmanshipâ is likely to take place between the two organisations in which al-Qaeda pursues a campaign of international attacks in order to regain the limelight
Multilingual Cross-domain Perspectives on Online Hate Speech
In this report, we present a study of eight corpora of online hate speech, by
demonstrating the NLP techniques that we used to collect and analyze the
jihadist, extremist, racist, and sexist content. Analysis of the multilingual
corpora shows that the different contexts share certain characteristics in
their hateful rhetoric. To expose the main features, we have focused on text
classification, text profiling, keyword and collocation extraction, along with
manual annotation and qualitative study.Comment: 24 page
Interactive Search and Exploration in Online Discussion Forums Using Multimodal Embeddings
In this paper we present a novel interactive multimodal learning system,
which facilitates search and exploration in large networks of social multimedia
users. It allows the analyst to identify and select users of interest, and to
find similar users in an interactive learning setting. Our approach is based on
novel multimodal representations of users, words and concepts, which we
simultaneously learn by deploying a general-purpose neural embedding model. We
show these representations to be useful not only for categorizing users, but
also for automatically generating user and community profiles. Inspired by
traditional summarization approaches, we create the profiles by selecting
diverse and representative content from all available modalities, i.e. the
text, image and user modality. The usefulness of the approach is evaluated
using artificial actors, which simulate user behavior in a relevance feedback
scenario. Multiple experiments were conducted in order to evaluate the quality
of our multimodal representations, to compare different embedding strategies,
and to determine the importance of different modalities. We demonstrate the
capabilities of the proposed approach on two different multimedia collections
originating from the violent online extremism forum Stormfront and the
microblogging platform Twitter, which are particularly interesting due to the
high semantic level of the discussions they feature
The Empowerment of Hate
CAIR provides legal and advocacy services to people who have been targeted by bias.The organization employs 35 staff attorneys and has a presence in 22 states. These attorneys are tasked to assist every client in obtaining a just and fair resolution to their case, free of charge.While CAIR's focus is to win justice for each client, processing these cases provides the organization with a wealth of data. During the 2014-2016 period, CAIR staff processed a total of 11,427 incidents of potential bias.This report assembles this data to offer a larger and more comprehensive reflection of the civil rights implications of Islamophobic bias in the United States.CAIR is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, regardless of faith. We do so with gratitude for the protections already established through the long, and often ugly, struggles of other targeted communities. As we work to help our clients, our broader goal is to set legal precedent, pass laws, and shape a social environment in which every American enjoys the basic right to be free from unequal treatment
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Understanding the Appeal of ISIS
The Islamic State, or ISIS, has proven to be persistently successful in attracting people from all over the globe to join in its state-building and state-defending enterprise. This article explores the messages it has crafted, from the utopian to the militarily defensive, and the techniques it uses to propagate these messages (including on social media), which includes some historical comparisons to communism and Nazism. It goes on to provide initial research findings from the field to show how their message is working among (a small percentage of) the target audience, sketching the theory of identity fusion to argue that it is a sense of belonging to one group above all others that persuades people to travel to another country to kill and die for a cause
Anti-Muslim Prejudice When Exposed to News About Terrorism: The Roles of Negative Affect and Psychological Inflexibility
In the United States, some proposed law enforcement policies intended to prevent terrorism may violate the civil rights of American minorities. These policies include random searches by law enforcement, banning Muslims from entering the country, and refusing to grant asylum to Syrian refugees. Additionally, the rise of ISIS has heightened the salience of terrorism across the world and in the United States. The goal of the high-production videos produced by ISIS may be partially intended to create inter-religious conflict in the West. My study examines the effect of news about ISIS propaganda videos on Americansâ opinions about policies that limit the civil rights of Muslims. I also examine one possible moderator of reactions to ISIS propaganda: psychological inflexibility. This psychological factor, developed from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is a kind of behavioral reactivity to distressing events. I obtained two samples for this experiment: one student sample from a Southeastern university, and a national sample of adults. Results showed that viewing ISIS propaganda raised negative affect in participants in both samples, did not increase support for anti-Muslim security policies, and psychological inflexibility did not play a role in this relationship. However, negative affect did play a role in predicting support for anti-Muslim policies. These results suggest support for anti-Muslim security policies may be more influenced by negative affect than viewing any particular news story in the media. Future research may determine whether other measures of emotional reactivity may be predictive of reactions to terrorism portrayed in the media
The Islamic State as a Unique Social Movement: Exploiting Social Media in an Era of Religious Revival
The Islamic State (IS) is a reminder that religious terrorism in the Middle East remains a threat. However, this organization has been unique in its ability to emerge so aggressively, recruit large numbers of fighters from abroad, and establish a semi-functioning political state. In this thesis, I will explore this unprecedented phenomenon, focusing especially on the ways that trends of modernization, globalization, and sacralization have shaped the movement. As part of this work, I will specifically consider ISâ use of social media to recruit members and disseminate information and how this new technology has operated in tandem with the aforementioned trends to frame IS as a unique terrorist organization
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Social Media and the Decline of Truth
In media history, there exists a perpetual cycle in which humanityâs innovation of communication technology shapes world culture and political climate, eventually resulting in humanityâs delayed response to these changes. Using this framework, this paper addresses the recent innovations of the social media era and the spread of online communication in regards to their impact on behavioral conditioning, democracy, and generally how people process information. The discussion takes a nuanced stance between two popular ways of imagining social mediaâs effect on the world: arguing for both an oppressive, authoritarian reality, likened to Orwellâs 1984, and a senseless, over-stimulated one, likened to Huxleyâs Brave New World.
First, the paper addresses themes in human reasoning that have contributed to the success of social media as well as the ways social media exploits and reinforces certain aspects of human behavior. The discussion then turns to the politicization of social media and the ways society has used current media technology to shape political climates and additionally frame news, both internationally and domestically. Lastly, the paper addresses the deviance of social media platforms into problematic uses, including the empowerment of authoritarian regimes and the incitement of polarizing, extremist sentiments.Plan II Honors Progra
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