What they do in the shadows: examining the far-right networks on Telegram

Urman, Aleksandra; Katz, Stefan

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2020.1803946

Cited by 132 publications

(125 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…To gain a better understanding of how malicious content spreads, we begin by creating a map of the network of online hate communities across six social media platforms. We include actively moderated mainstream platforms—Facebook, VKontakte, and Instagram—that have and enforce (to varying degrees) policies against hate speech, as well as the less-moderated platforms Gab 26 , Telegram 27 , and 4Chan 28 . We focus on the distinction between actively moderated and less-moderated platforms while acknowledging that they also vary in other important ways that are outside the scope of this paper: for example, platforms also vary in terms of whether or not posted content is removed after a certain length of time and whether or not posts are identified as linked to specific user accounts.…”

Section: Design and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online hate network spreads malicious COVID-19 content outside the control of individual social media platforms

Velásquez

Leahy

Restrepo

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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We show that malicious COVID-19 content, including racism, disinformation, and misinformation, exploits the multiverse of online hate to spread quickly beyond the control of any individual social media platform. We provide a first mapping of the online hate network across six major social media platforms. We demonstrate how malicious content can travel across this network in ways that subvert platform moderation efforts. Machine learning topic analysis shows quantitatively how online hate communities are sharpening COVID-19 as a weapon, with topics evolving rapidly and content becoming increasingly coherent. Based on mathematical modeling, we provide predictions of how changes to content moderation policies can slow the spread of malicious content.

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Section: Design and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online hate network spreads malicious COVID-19 content outside the control of individual social media platforms

Velásquez

Leahy

Restrepo

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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show abstract

“…Furthermore, there is a huge research gap in the usage of other social media tools than Twitter and Facebook by populist actors, such as Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram. In particular, Telegram and WhatsApp seem to be interesting cases, as it has already been shown that those tools were extensively (mis)used by right-wing actors (Davis & Straubhaar, 2020;Urman & Katz, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Media, Populism, and Migration

Datts

2020

MaC

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Several scholars have attributed high hopes to social media regarding their alleged ability to enable a nonhierarchical and freely accessible debate among the citizenship (Loader & Mercea, 2011; Shirky, 2011). Those hopes have culminated in theses such those describing the social web as being a ‘new public sphere’ (Castells, 2009, p. 125) as well as in expectations regarding its revitalizing potential for the ‘Habermas’s public sphere’ (Kruse, Norris, & Flinchum, 2018, p. 62). Yet, these assumptions are not uncontested, particularly in the light of socially mediated populism (Mazzoleni & Bracciale, 2018). Interestingly, research on populism in the social web is still an exception. The same is true for the populist permeation of the social media discourse on migration, as a highly topical issue. This study seeks to elaborate on this research gap by examining to what extent the Twitter debate on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) was permeated by populist content. For this purpose, almost 70,000 tweets on the most important Hashtags referring to the GCM that took place in Marrakesh in December 2018 were collected and the 500 widest-reaching tweets analysed in terms of their populist permeation. Against initial expectations, the empirical findings show that populist narratives did not dominate the Twitter debate on migration. However, the empirical results indicate that ordinary citizens play an important role in the creation and dissemination of populist content. It seems that the social web widens the public sphere, including those actors who do not communicate in accordance with the Habermasian conceptualization of it.

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“…Hate speech is not restricted to a single social media platform or online group and the hate ecosystem is multi-dimensional, and these wider effects should be taken into account (Johnson et al, 2019). This is especially important as mainstream social media platforms enforce more stringent content moderation policies and users migrate to smaller platforms where exposure patterns to hate speech may be more concentrated (Urman & Katz, 2020). Additionally, in this work we also do not distinguish group membership of those posting hate speech, and therefore there is a chance that some of the hate is directed from out-group members at the platform or ingroup itself.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hate Contagion: Measuring the spread and trajectory of hate on social media

Jd¹,

Bright²

2021

Preprint

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Online hate speech is a growing concern, with minorities and vulnerable groups increasingly targeted with extreme denigration and hostility. The drivers of hate speech expression on social media are unclear, however. This study explores how hate speech develops on a fringe social media platform popular with the far-right, Gab. We investigate whether users seek out this platform in order to express hate, or whether instead they develop these opinions over time through a mechanism of socialisation, as they interact with other users on the platform. We find a positive association between the time users spend on the platform and their hate speech expression. We show that while some users do arrive on these platforms with pre-existing hate stances, others develop these expressions as they get exposed to the hateful opinions of others. Our analysis reveals how hate speech develops online, the important role of the group environment in accelerating its development, and gives valuable insight to inform the development of counter measures.

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What they do in the shadows: examining the far-right networks on Telegram

Cited by 132 publications

References 35 publications

Online hate network spreads malicious COVID-19 content outside the control of individual social media platforms

Online hate network spreads malicious COVID-19 content outside the control of individual social media platforms

Social Media, Populism, and Migration

Hate Contagion: Measuring the spread and trajectory of hate on social media

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