A Hashtag Perspective: Examining ISIS Supporter Activities on Twitter in Türkiye between 2019 and 2022

This study explores the Twitter activities of Turkish supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from 2019 to 2022, focusing on hashtag usage patterns. As a central part of ISIS's online strategy, hashtags are pivotal in disseminating propaganda, coordinating campaigns, and soliciting support. By analyzing 202,327 tweets, this research offers insights into thematic priorities and interconnections within ISIS-related discourse. Employing descriptive and network analyses, key findings reveal a steady increase in ISIS-supportive tweets, the emergence of clusters around aid and familial support, and distinct, unconnected hashtag groups reflecting various narratives. Hashtags related to financial aid, such as #saveprisoners and #elholcamp, emerge as central, highlighting a covert system of funding through social media and encrypted communication. This paper underscores the complexity of ISIS's digital influence in Türkiye, emphasizing the need for multifaceted countermeasures involving tech platforms, security forces, and media awareness campaigns to combat online extremist activities effectively.

LINK: https://gnet-research.org/2024/08/07/a-hashtag-perspective-examining-isis-supporter-activities-on-twitter-in-turkiye-between-2019-and-2022/

Bridging Disciplinary Gaps and Methodological Challenges in Understanding Deepfake Discourse: A Study of Turkish Reddit Posts Related to Deepfake

Abstract

This study explores the evolving landscape of deepfake discussions, focusing particularly on Turkish posts on Reddit. While deepfake technology gained prominence in 2017, the academic community's interest surged, with studies primarily concentrating on deepfake detection. However, there is a dearth of research on public perceptions and online discourse surrounding deepfake. Through text analysis, this study explores Turkish Reddit posts, uncovering that a substantial portion (69.4%) focuses on deepfakes with sexual content, particularly featuring celebrities (60.2%). Politics also emerges as a prominent theme, constituting 22% of the content, with an additional 8.6% dedicated to technical aspects of deepfake creation. Over time, posts on sexual deepfake content, particularly those featuring celebrities, dominate, but during the May 2023 presidential and general elections, political deepfakes gained traction. Despite shedding light on content trends, the study faces two significant limitations. The first limitation is methodological. Studies relying solely on text analysis struggle to offer comprehensive insights into people's perceptions of deepfake. Therefore, a more profound understanding can be attained through qualitative face-to-face interviews, allowing for a deeper exploration of individuals' perspectives. The second limitation is disciplinary. Research encompassing diverse disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and media studies would yield more nuanced results in comprehending both the broader framework of public and societal perceptions on the topic and their deeper intricacies.

Key words: Deepfake, Türkiye, Reddit, Interdisciplinary Approach, Dictionary-based Text Analysis, Mixed Methods

Link: https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/J-ICSLAC/article/view/4839/3551

A Hashtag Perspective: Examining ISIS Supporter Activities on Twitter in Türkiye between 2019 and 2022

Recent advancements in social media technologies have significantly impacted both individuals and terrorist organizations. This study examines the Twitter activities of ISIS's Turkish supporters from 2019 to 2022, focusing on the hashtags they used. The study employs a hashtag network analysis to explore the relationships and central themes among the hashtags used in 202,327 tweets by 666 different users. The analysis reveals a central cluster of hashtags related to various forms of aid, particularly financial support, often connected with hashtags like #elholcamp and #yoursisterinprisoncamp, which pertain to families of ISIS members detained in YPG-controlled camps. Additionally, Turkish supporters of ISIS solicit financial aid via Twitter, phone numbers, and Telegram, using religious hadiths to legitimize their efforts. The findings underscore the sophisticated use of social media by ISIS supporters to sustain their activities in Türkiye and beyond, highlighting the need for a multifaceted response involving tech companies, security forces, local communities, and the media. This collaboration is crucial to detect, report, and mitigate the misuse of social media for terrorist purposes and to educate the public about these activities.

LINK: https://gnet-research.org/2024/08/07/a-hashtag-perspective-examining-isis-supporter-activities-on-twitter-in-turkiye-between-2019-and-2022/

A Comprehensive Analysis of Public Discourse and Content Trends in Turkish Reddit Posts Related to Deepfake

ABSTRACT 

This study investigates the content and changes in deepfakes-related discussions on 5,220 Turkish Reddit posts from October 2019 to August 2023. Although the academic community has shown an increasing interest in deepfakes since 2017, focusing on detection methods and the technology itself, scant attention has been paid to public perceptions and online debate. The analysis reveals that 69.4% of the examined posts feature deepfake content with sexual themes, with celebrity women being the primary targets in 60.2% of cases. In contrast, 22% of the content is about politics and political figures, while 8.6% provides technical guidance on creating deepfakes. The study also observes content changes over time, noticing a rise in sexually explicit deepfake posts, particularly involving celebrities. However, in May 2023, coinciding with the presidential and general elections in Türkiye, discussions about politics and political figures have significantly increased. This study sheds light on the changing landscape of discussions, emphasizing the predominant presence of sexual content and the increasing prevalence of political content, particularly during election seasons. 

LINK: https://iga.pknu.ac.kr:446/html/jga/online-jga.php?mode=view&idx=28

Comparison of Turkish and English-Speaking ISIS Sympathizers’ Twitter Content between 2015 and 2016

 

Abstract

The development of social media technologies has had a significant impact on individuals, organizations and societies. However, social media has not only affected people and communities, but also terrorist organizations have started to use social media platforms effectively. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is one such group that actively utilizes social media. Social media has played a critical role in formulating and disseminating ISIS’s strategies. Twitter is one of the most effective social media platforms used by ISIS, and it actively uses Twitter in predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey. In this article, I use a dictionary-based method to compare and analyze 29,419 tweets from English-speaking supporters of ISIS and 40,526 tweets from Turkish supporters of ISIS between 2015 and 2016.

Keywords: Twitter analysis; Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS); Turkish and English-speaking ISIS supporters on Twitter; dictionary-based analysis

Link: https://brill.com/view/journals/iss/aop/article-10.1163-27730611-bja10013/article-10.1163-27730611-bja10013.xml

Terrorism-Related Topic In The Language Of Fake News In Indonesia

The discussion on the relations between terrorism and social media mainly focuses on social media's role in spreading terrorism ideology and recruiting a member of the terrorist group. However, social media has also become means to share fake news related to terrorism. Considering the relationship between fake news and terrorism, the primary purpose of this study is to examine the content, language used, and emotion of fake news about terrorism in Indonesia. It also revelas what kind of language is used in fake news to manipulate the public and what emotions it appeals to? We analyzed fake news about terrorism in Indonesia using quantitative text analysis methods, such as sentiment analysis and dictionary-based analysis methods with R statistical software. We created two dictionaries covering religious and violent words, and fake news was examined under these two dictionaries. For reliability, we applied the "Split-half test" to the results and we reached similar results. This study shows that ISIS, Aceh, and terrorist action in Sulawesi are three dominant topics in fake news. Second, the language on fake news is mostly about terrorism and violence to create fear in society. Third, violence and religious language are equal in the language of misleading content. We interpreted the results obtained with the traditional fear of crime theory. We then discussed the significant results of this research and made effort to explain the reasons behind our research results. The study has a limitation because of the small number of fake news. Future studies may overcome this limitation by selecting multiple countries as cases or increasing the data range of fake news. The dictionary-based method we used in this study is relatively new to the literature and provides the opportunity to analyze fake news content effectively. Our results using the Dictionary-based method can provide valuable clues for policymakers in the counter-terrorism field.

Link: https://ejournal.upnvj.ac.id/index.php/JM/article/view/MJIHI%20_01

 ISIS Religious and Extremist Propaganda on Social Media: Dictionary-Based Study of Twitter

Abstract

The world had faced with many terrorist organizations until 2014. However, after 2014, the world faced with the most complicated terrorist organization. This terrorist organization is ISIS or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS has been running a more different propaganda campaign, emphasizing the state-building and welfare schemes run by this organization and these elements make ISIS more complicated. ISIS has been very well integrated into the new technology such as social media and smartphone and ISIS has been using them very effectively. Especially Twitter has become a major component of ISIS social media movement. Twitter was used to spread sensationalistic ISIS photos and videos across the Twitter users. While ISIS spread fear and messages on twitter, at the same time it also gained supporters. However, it is seen that ISIS’ sympathizer uses different jargons in terms of their number of followers in twitter. As a result of my research, I found that users with more followers used a stronger violence jargon on Twitter, while users with fewer followers using a softer and more religious language. Users with less followers were an emphasis on unity and religion, while users with more followers encouraging physical violence such as lone wolf attacks and killing enemy appeared more often on Twitter. Dictionary-based analysis of ISIS' and its sympathizers' tweets were performed. This dictionary-based research creates a typology to explain and categorize tweets from ISIS and its followers. For reliability, "Split-half test" was applied to the results and similar results were reached.

Keywords: ISIS, Twitter, Dictionary-Based Analysis, Propaganda

RELATED LINK: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/isis-religious-and-extremist-propaganda-social-media-dictionary-based-study-twitter

2020 General Election in Taiwan

The results of the Taiwan general elections had been eagerly awaited for a long time. Especially the results of the local elections in 2018 made these general elections more remarkable. In addition, the protests in Hong Kong increased the importance of the Taiwan general elections.

In this article, I will first describe my observations in general elections. Then I will briefly explain the results of Twitter analysis about Taiwan general election, which I analyzed with the text analysis method.

OBSERVATION

In the morning, I started following the general elections in Taiwan. At the same time, I also tried to feel the political atmosphere inside country. Because of that reason, I talked with some of my Taiwanese friends. Around 7 PM, the election results began to be announced. Around 7.30pm, I first went to the KMT's headquarter in Kaohsiung. However, the KMT headquarter was quite empty. The most important reason for this was that DPP was ahead by far, according to the first results. Another important reason was that pan-blue party sympathizers did not trust their candidates.

Around 8 pm, the results began to be clear and I decided to go to the DPP's rally. The rally area was quite crowded. It was as crowded as the KMT's rally, which won last year's local elections. The excitement and joy of people in the rally area was quite interesting.

As a result of the local elections in 2018, the Green Party(DPP) lost the local elections. As a result of the defeat, the DPP leader and Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-Wen resigned from party leadership. But Tsai Ing-Wen, who withdrew her resignation, won this year's general elections.

With the results, the KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu made his speech first. About an hour later, Tsai Ing wen, the winner of the election, made her speech. However, the first thing that caught my attention during this speech was that Tsai Ing Wen spoke quite calmly and seriously. Unlike Ing Wen, DPP sympathizers were extremely happy.

In her speech, Ing wen praised Taiwan's democracy and stated that relations with China will continue in the same way.

TWITTER ANALYSIS

2000 English tweets about Taiwanese general elections between the January 1st and January 20th were examined with R computer program. First, the most commonly used words were found in these 2000 tweets. The words Economy, Growth, Hong Kong Protests, independence and victory are the most used words in 2000 tweets.

Most of the tweets are positive about Ing-Wen and DPP's victory.

Words like freedom, peaceful, democracy, growth and hope are the most commonly used positive words. Words such as infrared, protest, fight and Xi Jinping are the most commonly used negative words. 

Secondly, sentiment analysis of these 2000 tweets was analyzed. The highest sentiment in these tweets is trust. Then comes anticipation and fear.

Words like president, democracy, freedom, integrity, alliance and brilliant are the words with the highest trust sentiment. Words like young, vote, result and prevention are the words with the highest sense of anticipation. Words like Fight, Interfere, and Xi Jinping are the words with the highest sense of fear.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, DPP sympathizers were very happy and hopeful at the DPP rally. Twitter analysis results gave similar results.

However, despite all this happiness and anticipation, it is a matter of curiosity how China-Taiwan relations and Ing-Wen's attitude towards China will change and shape.

The relationship between Twitter and ISIS

In recent years, great development has been seen in technology. One of the most important of these technologies is social media.

The development of social media has played an important role in many social protests in recent years in the world. The best example of such social protests is the Arab Spring period.

During the Arab Spring, social media played an important role in helping people get news and organize. However, this development of social media is not only used by innocent people. Especially in recent years, terrorist organizations also benefit from the development of social media.

The most active terrorist organization on social media is ISIS. In particular, ISIS was using Twitter very actively. %90 of ISIS social media was conducted via twitter. ISIS sympathizers posted 200000 tweets per day.

Therefore, in this study, tweets of ISIS sympathizers between 2015-2016 were examined. The results of the research are as follows;

Most active 10 twitter users about ISIS
username,                         sum(weight)
Uncle_SamCoco,             1610
mobi_ayubi,                     1071
WarReporter1,                 706
warrnews,                         657
melvynlion,                      640
RamiAlLolah,                  606
MaghrabiArabi,               450
_IshfaqAhmad,                430
AsimAbuMerjem,           289
NaseemAhmed50,           251

The research was first started to analyze one of the most active users. This user is war breaking news. This user's most commonly used words are as follows;

[1] "after"       "against"     "aleppo"      "alqassam"    "amp"         "and"         "are"         "army"        "assad"       "attack"      "border"   
[12] "breaking"    "captured"    "city"        "civilians"   "claims"      "clashes"     "damascus"    "destroyed"   "dozens"      "during"      "fallujah" 
[23] "fight"       "fighters"    "for"         "forces"      "from"        "fsa"         "gaza"        "hamas"       "have"        "homs"        "huge"     
[34] "injured"     "iranian"     "iraq"        "iraqi"       "isis"        "israel"      "israeli"     "killed"      "least"       "militant"    "militants"
[45] "military"    "more"        "mosul"       "mujahid"     "near"        "new"         "news"        "nidalgazaui" "north"       "northern"    "not"     
[56] "now"         "offensive"   "one"         "over"        "palmyra"     "people"      "province"    "rebels"      "regime"      "reports"     "russia"   
[67] "russian"     "saa"         "saudi"       "sham"        "shiite"      "shot"        "soldiers"    "south"       "southern"    "suicide"     "syria"   
[78] "syrian"      "that"        "the"         "their"       "they"        "this"        "today"       "troops"      "turkey"      "turkish"     "video"   
[89] "war"         "warnews"     "was"         "were"        "who"         "will"        "with"        "ypg"

In addition to the war breaking news, the tweets of the two users were analyzed also. The first user was Fahad al-Kuwaiti.

Fahad mostly used words such as state, mujahideen and Islamic. After Fahad, the tweets of Flames of Haqq were examined.

These are the most popular words used by Flames of Haqq. In addition, the detailed list of words used by Haqq is as follows.

[1] "ahmad"        "alasma"       "allah"        "amp"          "and"          "are"          "cerantonio"   "follow"       "for"          "from"     
[11] "isis"         "jibril"       "johnsonsbot"  "just"         "keep"         "killed"       "musa"         "mustaklash"   "nby"          "one"       
[21] "our"          "palmyra"      "please"       "rer"          "sparksofirha" "str"          "that"         "the"          "this"         "today"     
[31] "ulhusna"      "video"        "warreporter"  "who"          "with"         "wwayf"        "you"          "your"

As seen in all three examples, the most commonly used words are words such as kill or killed, video, state and war. ISIS sympathizers positively propagate ISIS with these words. As a result, ISIS sympathizers make positive propaganda through twitter. The authorities should take action on this matter.