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The Temporal Evolution of a Far-Right Forum

SiempreViernes 7y ago
No really interestimg results, they just measured overall activity without giving any reference for "neutral" forum behaviour in this summary. Apparently no effort was made to track what they actually talked about, so its hard to see any utility of this result for understandig extremism.
- pnako 7y ago
  I think their methodology of measuring "extremist" content "through a composite measure consisting of the frequency of profane words, racial slurs and negative overall sentiment of the post" is flawed. It will completely overweight places like 4chan, where potty-mouthed teenagers and young adults like to be edgy, or sites like Facebook where boomers rant about immigration or other social issues, while completely escaping real extremist content like actual terrorist manifestos (e.g. the Unabomber manifesto or Al Qaeda publications, which are not full of profane words and racial slurs).
  - DanBC 7y ago
    Ironic racism is simply racism. Edgy teens on 4chan are racist edgy teens on 4chan, and they promote extremism.
    - pnako 7y ago
      The point I was trying to make is that the most extreme content (i.e. literal terrorist manifestos) typically is _not_ full of racial slurs or similar content. Look at the manifesto from the Christchurch shooter, for example. Not a single racial slur. In fact, it's entirely possible that, as a place becomes more serious/more political (and thus perhaps more dangerous and indeed "extremist") you will see the speech use fewer slurs or offensive speech. Thus if you wanted to detect actual extremism you'll have to do much more in-depth analysis to try and infer meaning. Probably with human analysts rather than a script counting the number of n-words in a given week.
      - alphabettsy 7y ago
        This is exactly what politicians do. That’s where the term dog-whistle comes into play because it’s not always clear what they’re talking about. “Jews will not replace us” becomes “we’re concerned about maintaining our cultural heritage”.
  - alphabettsy 7y ago
    Racism is a problem, even in schools, so I don’t think calling it edgy or boomer ranting is help. It minimizes and normalizes it as if it’s somehow acceptable. Neither the Unabomber or Al Qaeda have any impact on the lives on millions of Americans. Racism that refuses to die certainly does as demonstrated by the number of hate crimes we see in this country both major and minor.
    - onyva 7y ago
      Well put.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
empath75 7y ago
> Indeed, a mere 10% of users were responsible for more than 80% of posting activity, and 20% of the users accounted for almost 90% of posts This is true on almost any forum.
- jkingsbery 7y ago
  I remember seeing a talk from RubyConf a few years ago that showed open source contributions follow the same pattern.
nabla9 7y ago
Tracking the evolution using only profanity or racial slurs misses real changes. There was interesting podcast about some researcher who has been studying the evolution of trolling and 4chan, Breitbart etc. for a very long time. (If someone can find her name it would be nice). At the beginning it was almost completely edgy middle class teenage boys enjoying using taboo words and writing forbidden comments and irritating and shocking people. Trolling was just for fun. Getting into the news was major win. Teenage idiocy turned into real world brutality. Doxxing and real world harm. People who are truly racist and have a political agenda joined. Mix of creative trolls and far-right people works because when everything is taken as irony people who are dead serious idiots can't be differentiated from edgy teenagers.
- RickJWagner 7y ago
  I get my news from a variety of sources, both left and right. (Bonus: Read 'RealClearPolitics' for both at once.) I sometimes read Breitbart for a right-side source. I've seen lots of definitely conservative content, but never anything that's off-color or out of bounds. I'm just curious why you cite it here? Can you point out any examples of anything that would be considered taboo, etc?

No really interestimg results, they just measured overall activity without giving any reference for "neutral" forum behaviour in this summary. Apparently no effort was made to track what they actually talked about, so its hard to see any utility of this result for understandig extremism.

pnako 7y ago
I think their methodology of measuring "extremist" content "through a composite measure consisting of the frequency of profane words, racial slurs and negative overall sentiment of the post" is flawed. It will completely overweight places like 4chan, where potty-mouthed teenagers and young adults like to be edgy, or sites like Facebook where boomers rant about immigration or other social issues, while completely escaping real extremist content like actual terrorist manifestos (e.g. the Unabomber manifesto or Al Qaeda publications, which are not full of profane words and racial slurs).
- DanBC 7y ago
  Ironic racism is simply racism. Edgy teens on 4chan are racist edgy teens on 4chan, and they promote extremism.
  - pnako 7y ago
    The point I was trying to make is that the most extreme content (i.e. literal terrorist manifestos) typically is _not_ full of racial slurs or similar content. Look at the manifesto from the Christchurch shooter, for example. Not a single racial slur. In fact, it's entirely possible that, as a place becomes more serious/more political (and thus perhaps more dangerous and indeed "extremist") you will see the speech use fewer slurs or offensive speech. Thus if you wanted to detect actual extremism you'll have to do much more in-depth analysis to try and infer meaning. Probably with human analysts rather than a script counting the number of n-words in a given week.
    - alphabettsy 7y ago
      This is exactly what politicians do. That’s where the term dog-whistle comes into play because it’s not always clear what they’re talking about. “Jews will not replace us” becomes “we’re concerned about maintaining our cultural heritage”.
- alphabettsy 7y ago
  Racism is a problem, even in schools, so I don’t think calling it edgy or boomer ranting is help. It minimizes and normalizes it as if it’s somehow acceptable. Neither the Unabomber or Al Qaeda have any impact on the lives on millions of Americans. Racism that refuses to die certainly does as demonstrated by the number of hate crimes we see in this country both major and minor.
  - onyva 7y ago
    Well put.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

empath75 7y ago

> Indeed, a mere 10% of users were responsible for more than 80% of posting activity, and 20% of the users accounted for almost 90% of posts This is true on almost any forum.

jkingsbery 7y ago
I remember seeing a talk from RubyConf a few years ago that showed open source contributions follow the same pattern.

nabla9 7y ago

Tracking the evolution using only profanity or racial slurs misses real changes. There was interesting podcast about some researcher who has been studying the evolution of trolling and 4chan, Breitbart etc. for a very long time. (If someone can find her name it would be nice). At the beginning it was almost completely edgy middle class teenage boys enjoying using taboo words and writing forbidden comments and irritating and shocking people. Trolling was just for fun. Getting into the news was major win. Teenage idiocy turned into real world brutality. Doxxing and real world harm. People who are truly racist and have a political agenda joined. Mix of creative trolls and far-right people works because when everything is taken as irony people who are dead serious idiots can't be differentiated from edgy teenagers.

RickJWagner 7y ago
I get my news from a variety of sources, both left and right. (Bonus: Read 'RealClearPolitics' for both at once.) I sometimes read Breitbart for a right-side source. I've seen lots of definitely conservative content, but never anything that's off-color or out of bounds. I'm just curious why you cite it here? Can you point out any examples of anything that would be considered taboo, etc?