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Title: Hidden order across online extremist movements can be disrupted by nudging collective chemistry

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. George Washington Univ., Washington, DC (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. George Washington Univ., Washington, DC (United States); ClustrX LLC, Washington, DC (United States)
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Disrupting the emergence and evolution of potentially violent online extremist movements is a crucial challenge. Extremism research has analyzed such movements in detail, focusing on individual- and movement-level characteristics. But are there system-level commonalities in the ways these movements emerge and grow? Here we compare the growth of the Boogaloos, a new and increasingly prominent U.S. extremist movement, to the growth of online support for ISIS, a militant, terrorist organization based in the Middle East that follows a radical version of Islam. We show that the early dynamics of these two online movements follow the same mathematical order despite their stark ideological, geographical, and cultural differences. The evolution of both movements, across scales, follows a single shockwave equation that accounts for heterogeneity in online interactions. These scientific properties suggest specific policies to address online extremism and radicalization. We show how actions by social media platforms could disrupt the onset and ‘flatten the curve’ of such online extremism by nudging its collective chemistry. Our results provide a system-level understanding of the emergence of extremist movements that yields fresh insight into their evolution and possible interventions to limit their growth.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001; FA9550-20-1-0382; FA9550-20-1-0383; SES-2030694
OSTI ID:
1807852
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-21-21269
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 11, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (2)

Emergent dynamics of extremes in a population driven by common information sources and new social media algorithms journal August 2019
Consensus formation times in anisotropic societies journal June 2017

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99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS