Recent terrorist attacks carried out on behalf of ISIS on American and European soil by lone wolf attackers or sleeper cells remind us of the importance of understanding the dynamics of radicalization mediated by social media communication channels. In this paper, we shed light on the social media activity of a group of twenty-five thousand users whose association with ISIS online radical propaganda has been manually verified. By using a computational tool known as dynamic activity-connectivity maps, based on network and temporal activity patterns, we investigate the dynamics of social influence within ISIS supporters. We finally quantify the effectiveness of ISIS propaganda by determining the adoption of extremist content in the general population and draw a parallel between radical propaganda and epidemics spreading, highlighting that information broadcasters and influential ISIS supporters generate highly-infectious cascades of information contagion. Our findings will help generate effective countermeasures to combat the group and other forms of online extremism.
Extremist Propaganda in Social Media: A Threat to Homeland Security presents both an analysis of the impact of propaganda in social media and the rise of extremism in mass society from technological and social perspectives. The book identifies the current phenomenon, what shall be dubbed for purposes of this book "Blisstopian Societies"—characterized in the abiding "ignorance is bliss" principle—whereby a population is complacent and has unquestioning acceptance of a social doctrine without challenge and introspection. In these subcultures, the malleable population self-select social media content, "news," and propaganda delivery mechanisms. By doing so, they expose themselves only to content that motivates, reinforces, and contributes to their isolation, alienation, and self-regulation of the social groups and individuals. In doing this, objective news is dismissed, fake—or news otherwise intended to misinform—reinforces their stereotyped beliefs about society and the world around them. This phenomenon is, unfortunately, not "fake news," but a real threat to which counterterror, intelligence, Homeland Security, law enforcement, the military, and global organizations must be hyper-vigilant of, now and into the foreseeable future. Chapters cite numerous examples from the 2016 political election, the Russia investigation into the Trump Campaign, ISIS, domestic US terrorists, among many other examples of extremist and radicalizing rhetoric. The book illustrates throughout that this contrived and manufactured bliss has fueled the rise and perpetuation of hate crimes, radicalism, and violence in such groups as ISIS, Boko Haram, Neo-Nazis, white separatists, and white supremacists in the United States—in addition to perpetuating ethnic cleansing actions around the world. This dynamic has led to increased political polarization in the United States and abroad, while furthering an unwillingness and inability to both compromise or see others’ perspectives—further fomenting insular populations increasing willing to harm others and do violence. Extremist Propaganda in Social Media relates current Blisstopian practices to real-world hate speech and violence, connecting how such information is consumed by groups and translated into violent action. The book is an invaluable resources for those professionals that require an awareness of social media radicalization including: social media strategists, law enforcement, Homeland Security professionals, military planners and operatives—anyone tasked with countering combat such violent factions and fringes in conflict situations.
This book serves as a convenient entry point for researchers, practitioners, and students to understand the problems and challenges, learn state-of-the-art solutions for their specific needs, and quickly identify new research problems in their domains. The contributors to this volume describe the recent advancements in three related parts: (1) user engagements in the dissemination of information disorder; (2) techniques on detecting and mitigating disinformation; and (3) trending issues such as ethics, blockchain, clickbaits, etc. This edited volume will appeal to students, researchers, and professionals working on disinformation, misinformation and fake news in social media from a unique lens.
This handbook provides a theoretical and methodological exploration of the research on radicalisation and counter-radicalisation, one of the most influential concepts in Security Studies, International Relations, and Peace and Conflict Studies. Sitting at the heart of high-profile research and policy agendas on preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE), radicalisation as a concept has transformed the way researchers, policymakers, and societies think about how to counter terrorism and political violence. Deliberations about radicalisation and countering radicalisation have become further embedded as efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism have been ‘mainstreamed’ into other areas of public policy and practice, such as education, gender relations, health, peacebuilding, aid, and development. Theoretically and methodologically pluralistic, this handbook addresses radicalisation and countering radicalisation as they relate to a wide range of groups and milieus, articulating diverse ideological positions, drawing together insight and experience from multiple geographic and institutional settings, integrating global perspectives, and including scholarship focused on a range of policy fields. This book will be an essential reference point for anybody working on radicalisation, countering radicalisation, or terrorism and political violence more broadly. The insight that it provides will be relevant for both academics and members of relevant policy and practitioner communities.
This Special Issue comprises selected papers from the proceedings of the 5th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications, held on 15–30 November 2018, on sciforum.net, an online platform for hosting scholarly e-conferences and discussion groups. In this 5th edition of the electronic conference, contributors were invited to provide papers and presentations from the field of sensors and applications at large, resulting in a wide variety of excellent submissions and topic areas. Papers which attracted the most interest on the web or that provided a particularly innovative contribution were selected for publication in this collection. These peer-reviewed papers are published with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications. We hope this conference series will grow rapidly in the future and become recognized as a new way and venue by which to (electronically) present new developments related to the field of sensors and their applications.
This handbook focuses on new threats to psychological security that are posed by the malicious use of AI and how it can be used to counteract such threats. Studies on the malicious use of AI through deepfakes, agenda setting, sentiment analysis and affective computing and so forth, provide a visual representation of the various forms and methods of malicious influence on the human psyche, and through this on the political, economic, cultural processes, the activities of state and non-state institutions. Separate chapters examine the malicious use of AI in geopolitical confrontation, political campaigns, strategic deception, damage to corporate reputation, and activities of extremist and terrorist organizations. This is a unique volume that brings together a multidisciplinary range of established scholars and upcoming new researchers from 11 countries. This handbook is an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and professionals interested in this new and developing field of social practice and knowledge.
This two-volume set (CCIS 1393 and CCIS 1394) constitutes selected and revised papers of the 4th International Conference on Advanced Informatics for Computing Research, ICAICR 2020, held in Gurugram, India, in December 2020. The 34 revised full papers and 51 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 306 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computing methodologies; hardware; networks; security and privacy.
This book constitutes refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on International Conference on Computational Collective Intelligence, ICCCI 2021, held in Kallithea, Rhodes, Greece, in October - November 2021. Due to the the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held online. The 44 full papers and 14 short papers were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 231 submissions. The papers are organized according to the following topical sections: social networks and recommender systems; collective decision-making; computer vision techniques; innovations in intelligent systems; cybersecurity intelligent methods; data mining and machine learning; machine learning in real-world data; Internet of Things and computational technologies for collective intelligence; smart industry and management systems; low resource languages processing; computational intelligence for multimedia understanding.
This book examines dominant discourses in human rights education globally. Using diverse paradigms, ranging from critical theory to discourse analysis, the book examines major human rights education reforms and policy issues in a global culture, with a focus on the ambivalent and problematic relationship between human rights education discourses, ideology and the state. The book discusses democracy, ideology and human rights, which are among the most critical and significant factors defining and contextualising the processes surrounding human rights education globally. The book critiques current human rights education practices and policy reforms, illustrating the shifts in the relationship between the state, ideology, and human rights education policy. Written by authors from diverse backgrounds and regions, the book examines current developments in research concerning human rights education. The book enables readers to gain a more holistic understanding of the nexus between human rights education, and dominant ideologies, both locally and globally. It also provides an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly insights into international concerns in the field of human rights education in the context of global culture.
