Measuring the Evolution of Radical Right-Wing Posting Behaviors Online

The temporal evolution of a far-right forum

“…We observe a decline on all outcome measures after early summer of 2011-none of the outcome measures displayed an increase after that period, challenging the view that the forum attracted more user activity, more user engagement, or more potentially extremist posts. This finding stands in stark contrast with previous work on right-wing extremist online spaces [18] and propaganda [34], where steadily increasing participation [18] and negative language [34] were found over time, potentially indicative of polarisation or radicalisation.…”

“…Second, both user types reached their relative maximum number of posts early within the first 25% of their forum activity. This finding relates to previous work on radical posting behaviour on a Canadian rightwing forum [18], where the frequency of anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-LGBTQ posts tended to tail off after the first 19 months of forum activity (12% of a total of 160 months in the dataset). It must, however, be noted that posting behaviour did consider not only the number of posts, but also negative language use in the posts [18].…”

“…Specifically, trajectories of anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-LGBTQ posting behaviours over time were examined. It was found that the sample as a whole exhibited a steady increase of radical score over time, suggesting increased polarisation [18]. Forum users' individual radical posting behaviour, however, decreased within their first two years as a member.…”

“…By doing so, they found that the most radical users were concentrated on two of the four examined forums. The same type of 'radical score' was used to study a Canadian right-wing forum [18]. Specifically, trajectories of anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-LGBTQ posting behaviours over time were examined.…”

“…First, the sample studied here is only one of many niche internet forums (for others, see [5,14,18]). Thus, absent any cross-forum examination of the temporal dynamics, our findings cannot be generalised to other forums or even other rightwing forums.…”