Extremist Propaganda in Social Media

A Threat to Homeland Security

Michael Erbschloe

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138493674
• eBook ISBN: 9781351027366
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Extremist Propaganda in Social Media: A Threat to Homeland Security presents both an analysis of the impact of propaganda in social media and the rise of extremism in mass society from technological and social perspectives. The book identifies the current phenomenon, what shall be dubbed for purposes of this book "Blisstopian Societies"—characterized in the abiding "ignorance is bliss" principle—whereby a population is complacent and has unquestioning acceptance of a social doctrine without challenge and introspection. In these subcultures, the malleable population self-select social media content, "news," and propaganda delivery mechanisms. By doing so, they expose themselves only to content that motivates, reinforces, and contributes to their isolation, alienation, and self-regulation of the social groups and individuals. In doing this, objective news is dismissed, fake—or news otherwise intended to misinform—reinforces their stereotyped beliefs about society and the world around them.

This phenomenon is, unfortunately, not "fake news," but a real threat to which counterterror, intelligence, Homeland Security, law enforcement, the military, and global organizations must be hyper-vigilant of, now and into the foreseeable future. Chapters cite numerous examples from the 2016 political election, the Russia investigation into the Trump Campaign, ISIS, domestic US terrorists, among many other examples of extremist and radicalizing rhetoric.

The book illustrates throughout that this contrived and manufactured bliss has fueled the rise and perpetuation of hate crimes, radicalism, and violence in such groups as ISIS, Boko Haram, Neo-Nazis, white separatists, and white supremacists in the United States—in addition to perpetuating ethnic cleansing actions around the world. This dynamic has led to increased political polarization in the United States and abroad, while furthering an unwillingness and inability to both compromise or see others' perspectives—further fomenting insular populations increasing willing to harm others and do violence.

Extremist Propaganda in Social Media relates current Blisstopian practices to real-world hate speech and violence, connecting how such information is consumed by groups and translated into violent action. The book is an invaluable resources for those professionals that require an awareness of social media radicalization including: social media strategists, law enforcement, Homeland Security professionals, military planners and operatives—anyone tasked with countering combat such violent factions and fringes in conflict situations.

Chapter 1

A Framework to Analyze the Impact of Social Media Propaganda on Intolerance, Extremism, and Radicalization in Society

1.1 Propaganda Comes in Many Forms

Propaganda is a systematic effort to spread opinions or beliefs regardless of their validity, accuracy or honesty. In many cases it may be easy to identify propaganda but the more likely people are to believe the message the less likely they are to understand that it is propaganda. The 2016 U.S. presidential election is an excellent example of people wanting to believe the message, and the more they wanted to believe the more preposterous the propaganda became.

In March 2016, Senate Bill 2692, the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016, was introduced in the 114th U.S. Congress (2015–2016). The bill stated that it is the sense of Congress that

1. Foreign governments, including the Governments of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, use disinformation and other propaganda tools to undermine the national security objectives of the United States and key allies and partners.

2. The Russian Federation, in particular, has conducted sophisticated and large-scale disinformation campaigns that have sought to have a destabilizing effect on United States allies and interests.

3. In the last decade disinformation has increasingly become a key feature of the Government of the Russian Federation’s pursuit of political, economic, and military objectives in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the Balkans, and throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

4. The challenge of countering disinformation extends beyond effective strategic communications and public diplomacy, requiring a whole-of-government approach leveraging all elements of national power.

5. The United States Government should develop a comprehensive strategy to counter foreign disinformation and propaganda and assert leadership in developing a fact-based strategic narrative.

6. An important element of this strategy should be to protect and promote a free, healthy, and independent press in countries vulnerable to foreign disinformation [1].

The Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act was signed into law in December 2016 [2]. The bill demonstrated an understanding that propaganda is having an impact on countries around the world. One way to understand the process of propaganda is to examine the goals underlying a propaganda campaign or ongoing effort. Deception has been a major goal in propaganda as has creating confusion or uncertainty along with dividedness among individuals or groups. Offensive propaganda goals in social media are shown in Table 1.1 and defensive propaganda goals in social media are shown in Table 1.2.

There are several themes or messages that show up in social media propaganda and they are very similar to those used in business advertising campaigns. Bandwagon appeal, for example, conveys the message that our cause is so good that everyone is joining and you should too. Snob appeal is a reverse of the bandwagon appeal and messages suggest that joining our cause will make you better than everyone else since only special people are allowed to join. Other themes in social media propaganda include

■ Appeals that target a specific group of people using social media content that attracts that audience. The various approaches include youth appeal, appeal to maturity, appeal to teenagers, young children, men, women, professionals, specific religious groups, or hate groups. Social media targeting specific audiences will use pictures, slang, music, and cultural content that appeals to the type of person targeted.

Table 1.1 Offensive Propaganda Goals in Social Media

Deception: False promises/invalid information

Confusion: Creating and perpetuating uncertainty

Dividedness: Instigating hatred and suspicion

Exposure: Unauthorized release of information

Nullify opponents: Efforts to discredit opponents

Source: Erbschloe, M., Social Media Warfare: Equal Weapons for All, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2017.

Table 1.2 Defensive Propaganda Goals in Social Media

Self validation: Assuring the world of the validity and legitimacy of a position or action

Influencing aligned entities: Convincing allies of the validity and legitimacy of a position or action

Reinforcing alliance partners: Showing support of an allies’ position or action

Persuasion of non-aligned entities: Convincing non-allies of the validity and legitimacy of a position or action

Recruiting and indoctrination: Drawing people into a cause and teaching cause related doctrine

Nullifying opponents: Efforts to discredit opponents

Source: Erbschloe, M., Social Media Warfare: Equal Weapons for All, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2017.

■ Adoption of symbols, emblems, or tokens that represent a cause or depict a goal. The Swastika is probably the best known but animals such as lions and eagles have also been used in propaganda.

■ Use of statistics and numbers that depict a crisis or a need for action and motivate people to support or join a cause. None of the data need be accurate or properly presented to gain support. An example is making a claim that the United States has the highest taxes in the world when it clearly does not.

■ Sex appeal works in almost any campaign and attractive spokespeople help draw attention to a cause or campaign. The physical appearance and demeanor of the spokespeople need to be carefully chosen to match the desires of the target audience.

■ Card stacking presents positive aspects of a cause or a candidate while simultaneously pointing out negative aspects of the opposition to help reinforce an individual’s decision to become a supporter. The information need not be accurate or true but does need to appeal to the perspective of the supporters.

■ Emotional appeals that play on people’s fears, joys, and sadness work when they are unique but once the same appeal is packaged or played too many times the emotional response tends to diminish.

■ Generalities and catch phrases that are easy for people to remember and are easy to repeat such as “lock her up!”

■ Use of very snappy generalizations or connotations that prompt people to jump to the easiest, quickest, most obvious conclusion without evidence, data, or examples to support them.

■ Smoke screens are rhetoric used to avoid or hide an issue and are often used by political spokespeople who are trying not to answer a question or want to change topic; they were often used during the 2016 U.S. elections, during which the last thing people wanted to discuss were real issues so they kept bringing up Hillary Clinton’s e-mail servers.

■ Stereotyping, labeling, falsely depicting a person or group of people or a cause in a class or category based on superficial qualities or prejudgments.

■ Fallacies, false analogies or deliberately incorrect or misleading comparisons that depict people or things in a negative or positive light with no real evidence of a relationship or characteristic.

■ Altered documents, photos, or recordings that represent events that did not occur or changed the meaning and context of actual events.

■ Use of figurative language, metaphors, simile, or personifications that enhance comparisons between a person, place, or thing that leads people to see them in a positive or negative light.

■ Using God or Bible quotations to justify a position or a negative action.

■ The use of false testimonials or endorsements from experts, famous people, or plain folks to make a message more appealing to a target population.

■ Disseminated misinformation that may be intentional or unintentional action to generate interest or disinformation primarily designed to distort and deceive [4].

Propaganda has long been everywhere in the broadcast and print media and now it is a dominate force in social media. Identifying propaganda requires an objective mind and unbiased thinking. One of the biggest threats to homeland security is that even those professionals working in the field have biases and predispositions towards different points of view. It is simple—most people believe what they want to believe and can be easily taken in by propaganda. The important thing to remember is that the goal of propaganda and hate messages is to influence opinions, emotions, attitudes or behavior of a target audience in order to further the agenda of the propaganda creator or disseminator.

The creation and dissemination of propaganda is becoming increasingly more sophisticated in a data driven world. Political parties, private corporations, governments, and nonprofit organizations use data to tailor propaganda messages to target audiences to influence perceptions and change behaviors. There are a variety of evolving approaches to using use data science methods to identify segments of a population that are receptive to specific content and ideas.

Terrorists, like every other multi-national organization, are using the Internet to grow their business and to connect with like-minded individuals. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula produced a full-color, English-language online magazine. They are not only sharing ideas, they are spreading ideological conflict, soliciting information and inviting recruits to join Al Qaeda. Al Shabaab—the Al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia—has had its own Twitter account. Al Shabaab uses it to taunt its enemies often in English and to encourage terrorist activity. Extremists are not merely making use of the Internet for propaganda and recruitment, they also use cyber space to conduct operations [5].

A top priority of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks. From a threat perspective, the FBI has been concerned with three areas in particular: (1) Domestic fanatics and those who are inspired by the terrorists’ propaganda and feel empowered to act out in support; (2) those who are enabled to act after gaining inspiration from extremist propaganda and communicating with members of foreign terrorist organizations who provide guidance on oper...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• Introduction
• 1 A Framework to Analyze the Impact of Social Media Propaganda on Intolerance, Extremism, and Radicalization in Society
• 2 Social Media Propaganda and the Political Electoral Process
• 3 Government Institutional Response to Social Media Propaganda, Extremism, and Radicalization
• 4 Military Response to Social Media Propaganda-Driven Extremism and Radicalization
• 5 The Impact of Social Media Extremist Propaganda on Law Enforcement
• 6 The Corporate Extremist Propaganda Machine
• 7 Extremist Propaganda and Recruitment Targeting Youth
• 8 Electronic Aggression or Free Speech
• 9 Countering Extremist Anti-Science Propaganda
• 10 Observations on the Distribution of Extremist Propaganda
• 11 Ten Reasons Why Propaganda Works
• Glossary of Key Terms
• Index