A framework for investigating illegal wildlife trade on social media with machine learning

Minin, Enrico Di; Fink, Christoph; Hiippala, Tuomo; Tenkanen, Henrikki

doi:10.1111/cobi.13104

Cited by 105 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…It is also generally known that the search on the API often provides many videos that are not relevant to the interest of the studies [e.g. 44,49]. Regarding the analysis exploring factors that affect the social engagement (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analyzing the popularity of YouTube videos that violate mountain gorilla tourism regulations

Otsuka

Yamakoshi

2020

PLoS ONE

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Although ecotourism is expected to be compatible with conservation, it often imposes negative effects on wildlife. The ecotourism of endangered mountain gorillas has attracted many tourists and functioned as a key component of their conservation. There might be expectations on the part of tourists to observe or interact with gorillas in close proximity and such expectations may have been engendered by the contents of social media in this Information Age. However, the risk of disease transmission between humans and gorillas is a large concern and it is important to maintain a certain distance while observing gorillas to minimize risk. We conducted a content analysis and described the general characteristics of 282 You-Tube videos related to mountain gorilla tourism. Humans and gorillas were observed simultaneously in 70% of the videos, and physical contact or close proximity within arm's reach were identified in 40%. To explore the factors affecting the number of views and likes that these videos received, we ran generalized linear mixed models and performed AIC model selection with 206 videos in which humans and gorillas were observed simultaneously. Videos obtained more views and likes when the thumbnail photos included humans and gorillas together, while videos with thumbnail photos of only gorillas did not obtain more views and likes compared with those that included no gorillas. Moreover, videos obtained more views and likes in cases where physical contact or close proximity within arm's reach with gorillas were clearly observed, compared with those that did not clearly include close human-gorilla interaction. These results suggest that human-gorilla interaction and proximity with gorillas attract more public attention than gorillas shown by themselves. Our study highlights the importance of further investigation on the direct link between such contents that violate tourism regulations and the conflicting situation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Hausmann et al 2018 [43] demonstrated that social media has the potential to be utilized to remotely and cost-effectively understand tourists' preferences or expectations in wildlife tourism. Di Minin et al 2019 [44] provided a framework to investigate illegal wildlife trade using social media data and machine learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing the popularity of YouTube videos that violate mountain gorilla tourism regulations

Otsuka

Yamakoshi

2020

PLoS ONE

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“…But plastic pollution is a singular component of the wider threat of pollution, and, when considered in the fullest context of biodiversity loss and long-exceeded planetary boundaries, the focus afforded to this issue is arguably disproportionate to the scale of the threat posed (Stafford & Jones 2019). In contrast, overexploitation is a leading threat to biodiversity (Maxwell et al 2016;Di Minin et al 2019) that occupies a large share of eNGO Twitter advocacy while also being highly socially contagious (Fig. 1b)-a combination that could be responsible for generating positive outcomes for biodiversity conservation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Focus and social contagion of environmental organization advocacy on Twitter

Barrios‐O'Neill

2020

Conservation Biology

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Agriculture, overexploitation, and urbanization remain the major threats to biodiversity in the Anthropocene. The attention these threats garner among leading environmental nongovernmental organizations (eNGOs) and the wider public is critical in fostering the political will necessary to reverse biodiversity declines worldwide. I analyzed the advocacy of leading eNGOs on Twitter by scraping account timelines, screening content for advocacy relating to biodiversity threats and, for prevalent threats, further screening content for positive and negative emotional language with a sentiment lexicon. Twitter advocacy was dominated by the major threats of climate change and overexploitation and the minor threat of plastic pollution. The major threats of agriculture, urbanization, invasions, and pollution were rarely addressed. Content relating to overexploitation and plastic pollution was more socially contagious than other content. Increasing emotional negativity further increased social contagion, whereas increasing emotional positivity did not. Scientists, policy makers, and eNGOs should consider how narrowly focused advocacy on platforms like Twitter will contribute to effective global biodiversity conservation.

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“…There are a number of automated approaches for the search and retrieval of social media posts (see e.g. Malik and Tian 2017), which, with the employment of machine learning techniques (Di Minin et al 2018), may further increase the efficiency of similar analyses in the future. Harris et al (2015) suggest that species that are being over-exploited through trade can be identified on the basis of market data and observations of increasing prices alongside decreasing supply -notwithstanding data limitations, the use of social media data to detect increasing activity and/or popularity associated with a specific species or product offers a significant advantage over a market based approach by detecting and highlighting trends in interest well ahead of any more serious effects such as decreasing supply.…”

Section: Social Media Insights As a Wildlife Protection Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Popularity of pet otters on YouTube: evidence of an emerging trade threat

Harrington¹,

Macdonald²,

D’Cruze³

2019

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In response to growing reports of otters in the pet trade, and suggestions that the popularity of pet otters on social media may be driving demand, we collated YouTube videos of pet otters to test for trends in the number of videos published, their exposure (number of views) and popularity. We used English-language search terms to provide a global overview, as well as local language search terms for four South East Asian countries identified as being of potential importance in the pet otter trade (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam), and Japan. We found that not only had the number of videos depicting pet otters increased in the last two to three years (2016–2018), but that their popularity and/or engagement had also increased. Notwithstanding some country-level differences in the details of effects observed, the greatest increases in both the number of videos produced and their popularity occurred in Indonesia and Japan. At a global-level, commercial “viral” video sites appeared to be influential in terms of posting highly popular pet otter videos. At a national level, potentially influential videos tended to be produced by four or five individual otter owners. The appearance of phrases such as “I want one” in the comments section of the English-language videos, although not necessarily a statement of actual intent, suggests that these videos may be driving demand amongst their viewers and followers; similar analyses of video comments in each local language are warranted. Our results show an increase in social media activity that may not only be driving the apparent increase in popularity, but also amplifying awareness of the availability of these animals as pets, as well as creating and perpetuating the (erroneous) perception of otters as a suitable companion animal. At a global level, there are welfare concerns associated with otters in the pet trade, and, in South East Asia specifically, there are serious conservation concerns. We recommend increased regulation of these activities on social media, increased public awareness of the negative impacts of the pet trade on otters, and increased international protection. Specifically, we suggest the need to uplist both small-clawed and smooth-coated otters (Aonyxcinereus and Lutrogaleperspicillata, respectively) to CITES Appendix 1.

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A framework for investigating illegal wildlife trade on social media with machine learning

Abstract: Article impact statement: Machine learning can be used to automatically monitor and assess illegal wildlife trade on social media platforms.

Cited by 105 publications

References 20 publications

Analyzing the popularity of YouTube videos that violate mountain gorilla tourism regulations

Analyzing the popularity of YouTube videos that violate mountain gorilla tourism regulations

Focus and social contagion of environmental organization advocacy on Twitter

Popularity of pet otters on YouTube: evidence of an emerging trade threat

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