Organisational adaptation in an activist network: Social networks, leadership, and change in al-Muhajiroun

Kenney, Michael J.; Horgan, John; Horne, Cale; Vining, Peter; Carley, Kathleen M.; Bigrigg, Michael W.; Bloom, Mia; Braddock, Kurt

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2012.05.005

Cited by 34 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Human confrontations12345678910111213141516171819202122232425 from one-on-one fights345 through to collective protests678910, mass violence11121314151617181920212223 and even online acts of aggression2425, are of great societal importance. However our understanding of the dynamics at the event-by-event level remains limited (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

Simple mathematical law benchmarks human confrontations

Johnson

Medina

Zhao

et al. 2013

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Many high-profile societal problems involve an individual or group repeatedly attacking another – from child-parent disputes, sexual violence against women, civil unrest, violent conflicts and acts of terror, to current cyber-attacks on national infrastructure and ultrafast cyber-trades attacking stockholders. There is an urgent need to quantify the likely severity and timing of such future acts, shed light on likely perpetrators, and identify intervention strategies. Here we present a combined analysis of multiple datasets across all these domains which account for >100,000 events, and show that a simple mathematical law can benchmark them all. We derive this benchmark and interpret it, using a minimal mechanistic model grounded by state-of-the-art fieldwork. Our findings provide quantitative predictions concerning future attacks; a tool to help detect common perpetrators and abnormal behaviors; insight into the trajectory of a ‘lone wolf'; identification of a critical threshold for spreading a message or idea among perpetrators; an intervention strategy to erode the most lethal clusters; and more broadly, a quantitative starting point for cross-disciplinary theorizing about human aggression at the individual and group level, in both real and online worlds.

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confidence: 99%

Simple mathematical law benchmarks human confrontations

Johnson

Medina

Zhao

et al. 2013

Sci Rep

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“…2 Extremist entities such as ISIS (known as Islamic State) stand to benefit from the global reach and speed of the Internet for propaganda and recruiting purposes, in ways that were unthinkable for their predecessors (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). This increased connectivity may not only facilitate the formation of realworld organized groups that subsequently carry out violent attacks (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ecology features self-organized aggregates (online groups such as on Facebook or another social media analog) that proliferate preceding the onset of recent real-world campaigns, and adopt novel adaptive mechanisms to enhance their survival. One of the predictions is that development of large, potentially potent online groups can be thwarted by targeting smaller ones.2 Extremist entities such as ISIS (known as Islamic State) stand to benefit from the global reach and speed of the Internet for propaganda and recruiting purposes, in ways that were unthinkable for their predecessors (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). This increased connectivity may not only facilitate the formation of realworld organized groups that subsequently carry out violent attacks (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…the ISIS-inspired attack in San Bernardino, December 2015) (11). Recent research has used records of attacks to help elucidate group structure in past organizations for which the Internet was not a key component (3,6,12), the nature of attacks by lone-wolf actors (13) and the relationship between general online buzz and real-world events (14-16). Online buzz created by individuals that casually mention ISIS or protests is insufficient to identify any long-term build up ahead of sudden real-world events (see for example Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

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New online ecology of adversarial aggregates: ISIS and beyond

Johnson

Min

Vorobyeva

et al. 2016

Science

105

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Abstract:Support for extremist entities -whether from the far right, or far left --often manages to survive globally online despite significant external pressure, and may ultimately inspire violent acts by individuals having no obvious prior history of extremism. Examining longitudinal records of extremist online activity, we uncovered an ecology evolving on a daily timescale that drives online support, and we provide a mathematical theory that describes it. The ecology features self-organized aggregates (online groups such as on Facebook or another social media analog) that proliferate preceding the onset of recent real-world campaigns, and adopt novel adaptive mechanisms to enhance their survival. One of the predictions is that development of large, potentially potent online groups can be thwarted by targeting smaller ones.2 Extremist entities such as ISIS (known as Islamic State) stand to benefit from the global reach and speed of the Internet for propaganda and recruiting purposes, in ways that were unthinkable for their predecessors (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). This increased connectivity may not only facilitate the formation of realworld organized groups that subsequently carry out violent attacks (e.g. the ISIS-directed attacks in Paris, November 2015) but may also inspire self-radicalized actors with no known prior history of extremism or links to extremist leadership, to operate without actually belonging to a group (e.g. the ISIS-inspired attack in San Bernardino, December 2015) (11). Recent research has used records of attacks to help elucidate group structure in past organizations for which the Internet was not a key component (3,6,12), the nature of attacks by lone-wolf actors (13) and the relationship between general online buzz and real-world events (14-16). Online buzz created by individuals that casually mention ISIS or protests is insufficient to identify any long-term build up ahead of sudden real-world events (see for example Fig. S1). This leaves open the question of how support for an entity like ISIS develops online prior to any real-world group necessarily being formed, or any real-world attack perpetrated --whether by 'recruits' or those simply 'inspired'.Our datasets consist of detailed second-by-second longitudinal records of online support activity for ISIS from its 2014 development onwards and, for comparison, online civil protestors across multiple countries within the past three years following the U.S. Open Source Indicator (OSI) project (14-16). The online Supplementary Material (SM) provides a roadmap for the paper, data descriptions and downloads. The data shows that operational pro-ISIS and protest narratives develop through selforganized online aggregates, each of which is an ad hoc group of followers of an online page created through Facebook or its global equivalents such as ВКонтакте (VKontakte) at www.vk.com (Fig. 1). These generic web-based interfaces allow such aggregates to form in a language-agnostic way, and with freely chosen names that help attract followers wi...

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“…Information, knowledge and expertise constitute important 'access goods' (Bouwen, 2002;Immergut, 1992) that provide members of TPNs with access to policy-makers. Network-like forms of organization (including the TPNs) are thought to be structures very suitable for information transfer and learning (Kenney et al, 2012;Podolny & Page, 1998;Powell, 1990;Watts, 2003).…”

Section: The Tpn's Influence On Policy-and Decision-making Within the Eumentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational policy networks and the European Union's energy policy

Bocse

2015

Contemporary Politics

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The goal of this article is to critically examine the engagement between the European Union (EU) and a transnational policy network (TPN) that deals with an issue that has grown in importance in the architecture of the EU's energy policy: fracking. The author argues that successful engagement between the EU and networks on shale gas was facilitated by the fact that the TPN or the members of the TPN were in possession of technical and scientific information that is highly needed by institutions in Brussels. Also, the article reveals that the fact that EU energy insecurity has been high on the EU agenda increased EU's interest in actors that could provide vital insights into potential panaceas and palliatives to energy insecurity.

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Organisational adaptation in an activist network: Social networks, leadership, and change in al-Muhajiroun

Cited by 34 publications

References 15 publications

Simple mathematical law benchmarks human confrontations

Simple mathematical law benchmarks human confrontations

New online ecology of adversarial aggregates: ISIS and beyond

Transnational policy networks and the European Union's energy policy

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