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Researchers propose a new approach for dismantling online hate networks
How do you get rid of hate speech on social platforms? Until now, companies have generally tried two approaches. One is to ban individual users who are caught posting abuse; the other is to ban the large pages and groups where people who practice hate speech organize and promote their noxious views.
But what if this approach is counterproductive? That's the argument in an intriguing new paper out today in Nature from Neil Johnson, a professor of physics at George Washington University, and researchers at GW and the University of Miami. The paper, "Hidden resilience and adaptive dynamics of the global online hate ecology," explores how hate groups organize on Facebook and Russian social network VKontakte — and how they resurrect themselves after platforms ban them.
As Noemi Derzsy writes in her summary in Nature:
Johnson et al. show that online hate groups are organized in highly resilient clusters. The users in these clusters are not geographically localized, but are globally interconnected by 'highways' that facilitate the spread of online hate across different countries, continents and languages. When these clusters are attacked — for example, when hate groups are removed by social-media platform administrators (Fig. 1) — the clusters rapidly rewire and repair themselves, and strong bonds are made between clusters, formed by users shared between them, analogous to covalent chemical bonds. In some cases, two or more small clusters can even merge to form a large cluster, in a process the authors liken to the fusion of two atomic nuclei. Using their mathematical model, the authors demonstrated that banning hate content on a single platform aggravates online hate ecosystems and promotes the creation of clusters that are not detectable by platform policing (which the authors call 'dark pools'), where hate content can thrive unchecked.
[...] The researchers advocate a four-step approach to reduce the influence of hate networks.
- Identify smaller, more isolated clusters of hate speech and ban those users instead.
- Instead of wiping out entire small clusters, ban small samples from each cluster at random. This would theoretically weaken the cluster over time without inflaming the entire hive.
- Recruit users opposed to hate speech to engage with members of the larger hate clusters directly. (The authors explain: "In our data, some white supremacists call for a unified Europe under a Hitler-like regime, and others oppose a united Europe. Similar in-fighting exists between hate-clusters of the KKK movement. Adding a third population in a pre-engineered format then allows the hate-cluster extinction time to be manipulated globally.)
- Identify hate groups with competing views and pit them against one another, in an effort to sow doubt in the minds of participants.
Hidden resilience and adaptive dynamics of the global online hate ecology[$], Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1494-7)
(Score: 2, Troll) by Oakenshield on Tuesday August 27 2019, @04:40PM (8 children)
You seem to be describing Antifa/BAMN member Yvette Fellarca and her ilk. The problem with many of these "solutions" is that they are solely targeted against groups they dislike. If the powers that be were honest and wanted to disrupt all hate groups I could take them more seriously. This is just another censorship attempt against unpopular opinions from tech and higher education circles.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 27 2019, @05:35PM (7 children)
The Anti-Fascists protest Fascists.
The Fascists are murdering people.
These are not the same things.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Tuesday August 27 2019, @06:43PM (1 child)
Since when is hitting people with bike locks, ganging up and sending them to the hospital, throwing rocks, and spraying bear spray at people protesting?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday August 27 2019, @08:25PM
You don't understand NewSpeak. Antifa's violence is Free Speech, everyone else's speech is violence which justifies trying to kill them, in self defense against their violent hateful words.
(Score: 2) by Captival on Tuesday August 27 2019, @08:26PM (3 children)
Chicago 2019: 1500 shot, 350 dead.
Detroit: same
Philadelphia: same
Baltimore: same
Proud Boys 2019 body count: 0
Why be such a willing sheep for your MSM masters?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @11:29PM (2 children)
You're lying with statistics. The relevant data is of course per capita, not the sum. How many "proud boys" are there? Generously 10,000? Greater Chicago, let's call it 5m for this envelope calc. Then that's about 500 Chicagoans per Proud Boy. That means if all other things are the same, you should expect to see about ONE murder from a Proud Boy this year, if they're as violent as Chicagoans, but you should not expect it to have happened yet while Chicago is 500.
Of course, the odds that some Proud Boy committed murder and didn't make his association known (or the case wasn't publicized or whatnot) are quite high, assuming domestic violence or fighting at a bar or whatever.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @06:07AM (1 child)
No, you.
Chicago's murder rate is Chicago's, not greater Chicago's. And it's population is 2.7 million. However that includes infants, elderly, females, and other groups which are generally not involved in Chicago's insanity. According to former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, it's about 7% of the population responsible for 80% of the violent crime.
And of course, also as you mention, there are likely a substantial number of murders that go without any discovery. The police clearance rate for murders in Chicago is only 21%. In cases where offenders take the time to dispose of the bodies instead of leaving them lying in the street it's likely the police aren't exactly digging to find them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @01:13PM
Like whites and Asians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:48AM
The Anti-Fascists do not know who fascists are. Apparently, they think that it is anyone who disagrees with them. Or does not agree with them fast enough. Or wants a nuanced discussion.