Online extremism

This paper combines qualitative and quantitative content analysis to map and analyze the “Incel” worldview shared by members of a misogynistic online community ideologically linked to several recent acts of politically motivated violence, including Alek Minassian’s van attack in Toronto (2018) and Elliot Rodger’s school shooting in Isla Vista (2014). Specifically, the paper analyses how support and motivation for violence results from the particular structure this worldview presents in terms of social categories and causal narratives.

Since its early mainstream adoption in the 1990s, the Internet has been leveraged by white supremacist groups to recruit and radicalize individuals. Twenty years later, social media platforms, like YouTube, reddit, and Twitter, continue to further this practice. The attention of researchers has been primarily centered on white supremacist men, and this focus on white men erases white women’s roles as active agents in the spread of white supremacy, skewing our understanding of white supremacy as a whole. This study used digital ethnography and interviews to examine the ways white women are radicalized to organized white supremacy through popular social media platforms YouTube, reddit, and Twitter. The study found white women were radicalized by engaging with posts and joining communities focusing on beauty, anti-feminism or “The Red Pill,” traditionalist gender values or #TradLives, and alt-right politics. White supremacist recruiters leveraged gendered topics and weaponized platform features – likes, sharing, comments, recommendation algorithms, etc. – to cultivate a sense of community. Through involvement with these communities, women were introduced to racialized perspectives on each topic, usually after a catalytic pop culture or newsworthy event, and slowly radicalized to organized white supremacy.

The conservative shift taken by Russian authorities forced members of the Rus-sian extreme right to seek shelter online. Nevertheless, they fell under censorship restrictions. The objective of this study is to reveal the distinguishing features of extreme right online groups and their participants' activity under conditions of censorship. The groups studied were identified by means of linguistic markers of extreme right sentiments and attitudes. The metrics of social network analysis were used to analyze interconnections between the groups and the internal migrations of closed communities. The study revealed that (1) extreme right online communities use the tactic of creating mirror Internet sites in case the main group is blocked; (2) blocking of the most extreme oppositional extreme right online groups induces the remaining ones to imitate obedience to law, using "softer forms" of extremist rhetoric; (3) the audience of the blocked groups continues spreading extremist ideas through channels related to other subjects. The study's authors conclude that prohibiting extreme right discourse promotes the proliferation of extreme right ideas and sentiments.

This paper presents the results of a study on socioeconomic and demographic factors that affect the intensity of right-wing radicals' activity in the framework of the Russian-based social network VKontakte. Right-wing radical ideas expressed within the VKontakte network are most actively supported by the population of the regional centres (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar Krai) and areas around these centres, which are defined as the semi-periphery in the core-periphery model. The intensity of the online activity of right-wing radicals is mostly influenced by demographic factors, including the average age of the population, the net migration rate coefficient; however, it is not affected by the indicators of economic well-being. The authors hypothesise that support for right-wing radical ideology on social media is determined not by the objective characteristics of the social and economic well-being of the population, but by subjective emotional factors (irritation, feelings of social injustice).

Dans l’objectif de préserver l’intégrité physique et virtuelle des personnes et des territoires, plusieurs indicateurs sont aujourd’hui définis pour prévoir ou identifier des situations de radicalisation menant à la violence (A. Masmoudi et al., 2018 ; R. Lara-Cabrera, A. González Pardo, K. Benouaret, N. Faci, D. Benslimane and D. Camacho, 2017 ; N. Derbas et al., 2017). Cette présentation montre comment d’une part les médias sociaux peuvent être utilisés comme outils de propagation de haine et d’autre part comment l’intelligence artificielle peut être mise au service de la lutte contre l’extrémisme violent à partir de l’analyse précise des messages diffusés sur ces médias sociaux. L’analyse prend en compte les caractéristiques suivantes du discours : le contenu, le style, la fréquence des occurrences et le champ sémantique. Cependant, s’il est vrai que les indicateurs peuvent contribuer à la compréhension du phénomène de la radicalisation violente, il faudra, dans une perspective de prévention, favoriser le développement d’agents conversationnels visant à rassurer les personnes en demande de soutien ainsi que leurs proches. Enfin, sont soulevés les enjeux éthiques de l'usage de l'intelligence artificielle en lien aux biais, à la discrimination, à la précarisation des "clickworkers"... 
Conférence donnée lors du colloque "Intelligence artificielle et cybersécurité : convergence étonnante et effets des points de vues offensifs et défensifs" de l'ACFAS 2019 https://www.acfas.ca/evenements/congres/programme/87/200/214/c