Analysis of 3.4 million tweets shows that the media mujahedeen through the Swarmcast are still able to achieve their strategic goals. These goals include maintaining a persistent presence through a multi-platform zeitgeist which is able to disseminate content to large numbers of internet users. This large-scale study contradicts the findings of some smaller studies of ISIS tactics, which relied on proxy metrics to produce the reassuring conclusion that account suspensions are degrading the ability of extremist groups, such as ISIS, to disseminate content.
One of the objectives set out as part of the Netwar in Cyberia Research Project is to produce a strategic-level assessment of the information environment in which extremist groups operate. This will allow an analysis of collective and emergent behaviors within complex information systems and the identification of factors which could influence the success of Public Diplomacy responses to Jihadist online content.
Using the data collection and analysis run by VORTEX, an Austrian government-funded research center at the University of Vienna, the different information environments—or Jihadiscapes—can be analyzed.
Read the full post on USC CPD blog