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.

GOOD AND BAD TERRORIST

Nowadays, the world is haunted by a ghost, the ghost of terrorism. In particular, this ghost has frightened most of the people in the world after the twin towers attack in the United States on September 11, 2001.

In recent years, terrorism has been one of the most important threats in the world. This terrible threat threatens all countries in the world.

All countries must fight together against this big threat. Unfortunately, because of the lack of a common definition of terrorism, the definition of terrorism varies from country to country. This difference in definition affects all countries' war against terrorism.

The most acceptable definition of terror in the world is the CIA's definition of terror. This study uses the CIA's definition of terrorism. According to Central Intelligence Agency (2007), terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

This definition is quite clear. Based on this definition, the YPG in Syria is a terrorist organization. However, many Western countries and the United States do not recognize YPG as terrorists. But this organization has caused the deaths of many innocent people in Turkey. Nevertheless, the media of many countries continue to have positive news about this organization.

                                          Pic: 2018 YPG suicide attack in Turkey

In this study, CNN and Reuters' news about YPG between 2015-2018 were analyzed. First, CNN news was examined. In the beginning, the number of words were used in CNN about YPG was examined. The result of this examination is as follows;

             Secondly, the schema of the most used words was prepared. According to this scheme, some of the most used words are positive words such as women, life and freedom.

              Finally, sentiment analysis was performed. As a result of this analysis, it was found that the majority of the words used about YPG were positive.

            Secondly, Reuters news about YPG were examined. As a result of the analysis of the Reuters news also showed a positive attitude toward YPG like CNN. Some of the most used words in reuters are positive words such as women, equality and freedom.

           Sentiment analysis was performed also for reuters and based on the result of this analysis, it was found that the majority of the words used in reuters about YPG were positive.

            As can be seen, there are two types of terrorists. The first is bad and dangerous terrorist and the second one is good and beneficial terrorist. However, it should not be forgotten that they are both terrorists and somewhere in the world innocent people dies everyday because of these terrorist organizations.

Is there any relationship between terrorism and poverty?

For a long time, international relations scholars have been discussing the causes of terrorism. One of the idea raised as a result of these discussions is poverty.

According to scholars such as Krueger and Maleckova (2003), there is a connection between poverty and terrorism. They support that there is a positive correlation between poverty and terrorism. According to Krueger and Maleckova (2003), if poverty is decreased, terrorism also will be decreased.

As a result of these researches, it was decided to investigate this subject in more detail. A data set was prepared in this direction. This data set included global hunger index, number of terrorist attacks, poverty and inequality numbers.

We got the global hunger index data from unicef, poverty and inequality from World bank and number of terrorist attacks from START.

There are 3 variables in this research. These variables are number of terrorist attacks in the World, global hunger index and poverty less than 1.90 usd.

 Firstly, correlation analysis between these three variables was performed. Based on this correlation analysis, no correlation was found between poverty and terror which is the purpose of the research.

            As can be seen in the table, there is no correlation between terrorism and hunger and poverty. After the correlation analysis, linear regression analysis was performed.

Dependent variable:
	Attack
Hunger	4.413
	(3.859)
Constant	30.843
	(94.052)
Observations	69
R2	0.019
Adjusted R2	0.005
Residual Std. Error	371.463 (df = 67)
F Statistic	1.308 (df = 1; 67)
Note:	*p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01

             
                  As could be seen, there is no significant relation between our variables. Linear regression analysis also confirmed the correlation analysis. As can be seen, there is no correlation between terrorism and poverty and hunger. This result is different from many sources in the literature.


REFERENCE:

Krueger, A., & Malečková, J. (2003). Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection? The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(4), 119-144. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3216934

What is going on in Venezuela?(3)

Just before dawn on 30 April, another effort at a army coup was initiated by the Venezuelan resistance. The botched coup attempt seemed to have failed by the end of the day, with one of its leaders seeking refuge in the Spanish embassy, 25 of the soldiers involved asylum seeking refuge in the Brazilian embassy and Juan Guaidó in hiding or running.

Many newspapers reported on this issue. In addition, many social media users posted their view on this issue. Some newspapers made positive news about Guaido and some newspapers made positive statements about Maduro. Similarly, social media posts are divided into two.

Therefore, the attitudes of some selected newspapers were examined. These newspapers are CNN, BBC, Sputnik, and Euronews.

In the same way, the most popular 1000 tweets were also examined.

The analyzes were performed using the R programming language.

Firstly, twitter was analyzed. The most popular 1000 tweets during may about Venezuela were reviewed. 

The most commonly used words are Guaido, president and America. There is an objectivity in tweets. Only English tweets were examined. Therefore, these results do not fully reflect the truth.

Secondly the French newspaper euronews was examined. The most used words in the news are Maduro and support. The most used words except Maduro and support are Guaidó, Guaido, opposition and military.

There are 20 positive and 26 negative words related to Maduro and Venezuela in the Euronews newspaper's report on the failed coup in Venezuela. With a simple operation, this news is a negative news about Maduro and Venezuela.

Thirdly the American newspaper CNN was examined. The most used words in the news are Maduro and Guaido. 

 
CNN's report on the failed coup in Venezuela has 52 positive, 55 negative words about the situation in Venezuela and Maduro. With a simple operation, this news is a negative news about Maduro.

The fourth one is the BBC newspaper. In this newspaper, the most used words are Maduro, options and venezuela. After these words Trump, military and Pompeo are the most commonly used words.

There are 16 positive, 54 negative words about the current situation in Venezuela and Maduro in the news of the BBC about failed coup in Venezuela. With a simple process, this news is a negative news about Maduro.

The last newspaper is the Russian Sputnik newspaper. In this newspaper, the most used words are Maduro, President, Venezuela and Guaido. After these words Russia and opposition are the most commonly used words.

Sputnik reported a positive news about Maduro. In a simple process, it seems that the newspaper supports Maduro and Russia's Venezuelan policies.

As it is seen, these newspapers are far from being neutral about Venezuela. Unfortunately, newspapers reflect the attitudes of the countries in which they are located. Therefore, it is very difficult to reach neutral and truth news about Venezuela nowadays.

The code file used can be downloaded from here: https://dosya.co/06f1ygnrj6p6/kod.txt.html

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OkPICN5Bck

WESTERNERS IN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS(7)

Cihan Kendal is from Germany. He is 25 years old. He is member of YPG. He is the commander of a 12-man unit in Raqqa in Syria. He could speak Kurdish very fluently.

In Germany, he was into anti,Nazi and anti-fascist politics. In 2012, his friend asked him to go Northern Syria and join YPG. After a while, he decided to join YPG.

He thinks that ISIS is against the freedom of the World and he thinks that “Kurdish movement” is actually a revolution.

WESTERNERS IN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS(6)

Mounsef al-Mkhayar is an Italian citizen. He is 22 years old. He is old ISIS member. Mkhayar is one of thousands from all over the world who were drawn to the promise of an ultra-radical Sunni Islamist utopia overriding national borders. Kurdish security officials identified him as Italian, and he said he holds Italian citizenship.

Mkhayar was sentenced to eight years in jail by a Milan court in 2017 for spreading Islamic State propaganda and trying to recruit Italians to its cause, according to Italian media. As a result, he is likely to have to serve this sentence if he does return to Italy.

Before ISIS, he was atheist and he was fan of Rap music. He had dream to move and live in USA. He joined ISIS when he was 18 years old. He had spent most of his life in Milan/Italy. He spent a month in prison on drugs charges.

Mounsef began immersing himself in Islamic State videos on YouTube and speaking to recruiters on Facebook. It took him only a month to decide to move to Syria with a friend four years ago.

                Then, he joined ISIS and he married with someone in Syria.

RELATED LINK: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-islamic-state-italy-ex/exclusive-islamic-state-fighter-wants-to-return-to-italy-warns-of-sleeper-cells-idUKKBN1QQ0ME

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