ARI: Hello, I'm Ari. [CLAUDINE: And I'm Claudine] Welcome to Proving the Negative.
ARI: We're a podcast all about exploring the different sides of cybersecurity,
from political to computer science, international relations to mathematics.
Join us as we talk to our friends about the work they do.
CLAUDINE: Today, we're going to be talking about how hate groups operate online,
how they use social media platforms to coordinate efforts or spread ideologies.
ARI: It's a topic for governments, it's a topic for the public,
and it's of interest, of course, to law enforcement.
CLAUDINE: The way online platforms were used to coordinate the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol,
organised groups can use social media to coordinate offline actions.
Those actions can slip under the radar, so it's a topic I'm keen to learn more about.
FATIMA: My name is Fatima, PhD student at the University of Oxford in cyber security.
My research look into online hate and how it's used across multiple platforms.
ARI: Your elevator pitch - what would that sound like?
We've seen over the past couple of decades how online platforms,
and social media has become an increasingly integral part of communication,
this has especially been highlighted during the ongoing COVID pandemic.
But this of course, had an impact on how malicious actors communicate as well.
Extremist and hate groups make use of platforms to spread propaganda,
recruit individuals, or just form stronger networks with like minded people.
We've seen how this behaviour can lead to catastrophic events,
like the ISIS Paris attacks and the Christchurch mosque attack.
So this isn't just a problem for the online community.
This is something that has a huge impact on the offline world as well.
So this isn't a problem faced just by specific platforms,
it's something that is faced by a majority of online platforms today,
and oftentimes hate groups will make use of multiple platforms,
no matter their audience size.
I argue that we can't look at online hate from the perspective of a single platform.
I look into how we can use a cross-platform perspective,
to see if we can gain any insight into how platforms are used differently,
and whether we can map hateful behaviour across multiple platforms.
So we have a more organised approach to countering it.
CLAUDINE: Could you clarify what you mean by a malicious actor?
FATIMA: What I am considering a malicious actor is...
I'm looking at hate groups that have been identified by law enforcement agencies,
or people who have identified in some way that they are supporters of hateful
ideology that has also been identified by law enforcement agencies.
Various other malicious actors use social media.
ARI: So what kind of malicious actors do we have out there now?
FATIMA: They're not just humans.
You have bots as well who are propagating all kinds of stuff,
whether it's trying to influence the opinion of the online audience,
or whether it's just trying to get people to engage in certain activities online,
in which you can get information from them.
So we saw this with Cambridge Analytica. It wasn't so much malicious,
as it was intrusive and exploiting things that online platforms provide
that weren't brought to the attention of the general public before.
The definition changes all the time - as well as how they make use of platforms.
ARI: The end result is to have this unified approach,
different platforms have one problem in common, particularly the problem you look at.
Why do we have to work together - who needs to work together on this?
FATIMA: It's not so much that we need to have one unified approach.
It's more - we haven't looked at how multiple platforms are used in this space.
Research has seen: "so this is what's going on in Twitter this year, this month..."
"... so that means this is how we need to address online hate".
But then that's specific to Twitter so we can't apply that to multiple platforms.
We need to start looking at all platforms and seeing how hate groups use them.
Do they use them for different things? Are they used together in some way?
Is some stuff posted on one platform, and then other stuff posted on another?
The rules on one platform are more lax than another - a unifying response wouldn't work.
It's more that we haven't looked at the perspectives of different platforms,
So we haven't included that in the counter-approaches we're looking at.
CLAUDINE: I realise it's a work in progress - what have you found so far,
In terms of taking that global perspective of multiple platforms?
FATIMA: I have seen differences in how platforms are used, it can be very subtle.
I was looking at online hate during the US elections.
I was looking at hate groups posting on different platforms - 4chan and Reddit,
Reddit had a much more organised response during the actual election
posting links for fundraising, whether hate groups or Trump-supporting causes.
There was a lot of repeat posting URL links,
but 4chan discussed the results more - not as much of an organised approach.
It's interesting to see how different communities use platforms differently.
That was one thing that I've found so far. CLAUDINE: Could you clarify 'hate group'?
FATIMA: Hate groups have a different definition across different areas, jurisdictions, countries,
each kind of law enforcement agency will have their own definition of a hate group.
Generally, it's when you're going against acceptable social norms.
A lot of the time it's specific to the country that you're in.
This is applicable to social media as well.
Social media platforms generally have their own body to monitor online content.
Each country also has their rules, which social media platforms have to follow.
Similarly, hate groups are going against what is socially acceptable behaviour.
ARI: They say things that mean certain groups of people have a worse time.
People being mistreated - that's a tangible result.
We don't want hate groups because people will suffer in real life.
This becomes a real world harm - these ideas being tossed around in online forums.
These things are bad because people are impacted. It's not a data problem entirely.
Is this a fair assessment of why hate groups are undesirable?
FATIMA: Exactly. It's why most countries now have have listed online hate as a harm,
even though it is a grey area in terms of defining and having one unified response
everywhere and one unified definition of hate across all countries and languages and stuff.
It's universally agreed that hate groups cause harm online, and consequence offline as well.
CLAUDINE: You saw a more organised response for these groups on certain platforms than on others.
Have you seen a change in the relationship between hate groups and the platforms that they use.
If platforms respond to new and emerging threats (posed by hate groups), by reinforcing standards,
how does that affect the way those hate groups use social media platforms and which social media platforms they use?
FATIMA: This is a huge area of research .
The main example that can be used is during ISIS' prime on Twitter,
2014-2016, we saw a lot of pro-ISIS support posted on Twitter.
But after a lot of the attacks that were happening offline,
in particular the Paris attacks, Twitter took a stand and started suspending multiple accounts.
At first it was becoming a badge of honour to these pro-ISIS supporters, where they'd,
create new accounts and say "Oh, I got suspended X many times before", like they'd been doing more for the cause.
But of course, this meant that eventually they were kicked off the platform,
so they had to move to a different platform to spread more extremist content.
We saw them move to more encrypted platforms like Telegram, which of course,
champion themselves as providing encrypted communication.
Your communication isn't going to be accessible to law enforcement. No one's going to publish it.
It's going to stick within your groups. We see platform migration a lot in this space,
even over the last year or so - the US elections and BLM resurgence last summer,
we saw that there was a lot more hate on Reddit communities and they were
eventually banned by it because they were increasing their hateful content.
Any time one of these platforms is suspended, they move to another .
That platform will have more lax rules - eventually pressure mounts on them to
monitor their content and to moderate whatever is being posted there.
You get platforms with a lot more reach, the ones with more rules and moderation.
And you have platforms with less reach, but more lax rules. Platforms are used together.
You're still recruiting, but not posting as much extremist or hateful explicit content on mainstream sites.
ARI: They're being used in the way that they've been intended to be used as social media.
Then it's whether you censor. Free speech is not freedom from
consequence, though. FATIMA: This is huge,
especially platforms with more lax rules. Their main ethos is "we're providing freedom of speech".
We won't be monitoring. We won't have as many rules.
You will see that they're used by particular hate groups and not others.
For example, Gab rose to prominence following Trump's election,
a lot of content being posted on Twitter had become identified as hate.
So this other platform (Gab) was saying, Oh, we won't have any rules here.
So - used more by Trump supporting white supremacist type hate.
You won't find as many ISIS supporters there, which is an interesting part of this.
Mostly, it's under the control of platform providers.
Twitter will have their own set of rules.
And so a lot of the time this [hate posts] will just be suspended or deleted.
It's mainly just the platform provider, especially when it comes to removing content.
There can be pressure put on them by governments and even the general public,
if there's enough of a response. It's just so big in terms of perspective.
There are countless platforms, countless hate groups. And so I have to narrow down my scope a little.
I was looking at this from a specific use case, just so we'd get an idea and then
identify hate groups or hate ideologies present across multiple platforms.
That would help narrow down the platforms and hate ideologies we include.
CLAUDINE: What was the most surprising or unexpected thing that you've come across?
FATIMA: I didn't know whether there would be a difference in how each platform was used,
each of these platforms has their own audience and their own type of content.
There was more explicit content on 4chan,
people weren't afraid to link pictures or graphics and stuff.
Reddit was more specific, because Reddit has more rules and moderation.
That could have had an impact - "we don't want to get kicked off this platform..."
"... so we have to stick by the rules". 4chan was less organised,
you could post anything and there were a lot more agreements
and disagreements. ARI: If you had all the resources and you had all the money in the world.
What big question, would you explore? FATIMA: For this particular area of research,
there are so many platforms online, there's so many hate groups.
Hate is posted in different languages, cultures... there are so many definitions.
There hasn't been a lot of comparison in this area.
Whether it's comparing hateful content in one language to English,
because most research in this area focuses on English hate,
we haven't had comparison across different countries, languages, cultures, platforms.
This is something we need to do to better understand of how hate operates online.
So if I had an unlimited amount of time and money,
I would look at hate from different languages, seeing how it compares,
whether there's cause for concern in other countries as well,
whether that has an impact on online hate in other places.
We saw with ISIS' attacks, a lot of the time it was organised in Arabic.
But then actual attacks happen in non-Arabic speaking countries.
ARI: Is there a word we can use instead of hate? FATIMA: This is interesting,
when I was starting, I was focussing on extremism and extremist groups.
There were less groups [referred to by] law enforcement under this particular term.
They would have a list of hate groups because, I guess for them a lot of,
extremist groups are hate groups that have been linked to attacks offline.
There's a definite impact, from the online to offline.
ISIS is clearly an extremist group.
Then you have individual extremists like the Christchurch shooter who isn't operating under a group.
But still very much an extremist. This Christchurch shooter only became an
extremist after he did the attack. He wouldn't have been considered an extremist while posting online.
It would have just been online hate, because he was attacking certain groups.
It wouldn't have been extremism, per se.
I went towards hate in my research is because it was a slightly broader.
It had a slightly broader definition than something specific like extremism.
Currently, with how legislation across most countries is being proposed,
'hate' is what is generally used. You will find more resources or information,
on the type of groups or ideologies that are counted as hate.
CLAUDINE: Have you noticed any overarching similarities between different hate groups,
obviously not in terms of ideology necessarily,
in terms of the approaches they use to market themselves, recruit or organise?
FATIMA: A lot of the time there wasn't enough content for me to compare.
I tended to just group my hate groups into one overarching hate ideology,
and compare them across multiple platforms.
That being said, while I was doing my research,
say one hate group is propagating hate through selling merchandise (t-shirts, music...).
This would be promoted by other hate groups, "this is a link, help our cause".
So there was collaboration between them.
It wasn't part of my research, but it's something that I found interesting,
Y'know? Is this one hate group?
Is this two hate groups? They have different names, organisational bodies and websites,
there was a lot of overlap between them online.
Many people will celebrate across the groups,
whether it's politicians that are very radically right, or certain public figures,
a lot of the time, it's public figures who have come to light in some way in this area.
So they're celebrated across groups as some kind of idol.
So there's a lot of overlap between them. ARI: Let's talk more about you.
What are the frustrations/things you enjoy about the work that you do?
It's the one space where I'm constantly learning, I don't know if I would get as much in another.
One thing I found difficult was finding an area where I could provide insight.
That's something that I struggled with. There's so much research,
you realise "wow, there's so much research going on. How do I find the gap here?"
That's one thing that I found difficult.
Oftentimes you don't realise how long it can take just to identify that gap.
Just to find this novel area of space that you can work in.
I would say, have one question that you're constantly answering,
no matter what kind of analysis that you're doing.
That can also be a little difficult in your research.
But once you have these clearly outlined , it becomes so interesting and then
you start enjoying the whole process of actually learning from your analysis.
There are going to be frustrating days where nothing's working!
CLAUDINE: What are you working on now? FATIMA: As a result of a summer school...
This is a group project with different researchers across the UK and Europe,
we're using similar methods (text/social media analysis) where
we're looking at how sentiment across online communities changes during crypto hypes.
For people who don't know, this is when the crypto currency values rise and fall.
We're looking at online crypto communities where this is discussed,
whether there's a community involved when prices change, etc.
It's not specifically feelings [we look at],
it's the overall group opinion.
We did find a few interesting findings.
When prices of Bitcoin increased,
then the online community became more individual and independent.
So they will talk about "I bought/sold this stock in bitcoin".
Next, I want to look at how these platforms are used within networks of hate,
and how activity maps across platforms,
whether there is a larger network of hate that encompasses multiple platforms.
It's something I haven't done before - hopefully I can get something out of it!
So it's more about using network analysis approaches.
CLAUDINE: If people are interested in learning more, what resources would you suggest?
FATIMA: This conference called ICWSM, general research in online social media platforms.
There's a lot of research going on across loads of different topics, not just online hate,
it's from - looking at pandemic sentiment around vaccinations.
Whether you're looking at online hate or not,
this conference will have a lot of the methods applicable to your research.
This is a resource I found really useful. It also publishes data sets,
loads of different types of datasets as well that are really useful.
Research project VOX - Pol have a lot of ideas and a lot of articles,
whether it's fully-fledged research publications, articles...
"We've seen X happening online", So that's been a starting point.
With how much technology and online resources that we're using day to day,
at home or at work or what have you, realising how these can be misused,
and how to use these technologies in the proper way...
[that's] My understanding of cybersecurity - such a broad area.
I found way more definitions of cyber security than I had anticipated.
CLAUDINE: That was our interview with Fatima. Join us next week
for another fascinating conversation.
In the meantime, you can tweet at us @HelloPTNPod
and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The title there is PTNPod. See you next week. ARI: Bye!
CLAUDINE: This has been a podcast from the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity, University of Oxford.
Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.