Forensic Magazine interviews Sporer about Twitter, terrorism research
Forensic Magazine interviewed Karyn Sporer, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maine, for an article about her research on terrorism and Twitter. Sporer analyzed tweets posted within 24 hours after major terrorist attacks, including Nice and the Pulse nightclub attack, to discern ways in which terrorists justify violence and look for patterns. She found distinct patterns similar to those used by criminals to justify their actions, grounded in basic criminology theory, according to Forensic Magazine. Sporer found that it was often not religious extremism driving the messages and corresponding actions, but perceptions of hypocrisy and inconsistency in the reporting of violence. “This appeal to hypocrisy is very prevalent,” Sporer said. “The hashtag social movements — anything like Pray for Paris, or I Am Paris, Not in My Name … That seems to be infuriating to a lot of these sympathizers. It’s not necessarily members of the Islamic State, but people who support what they’re doing.” She also noticed a lot of posts drawing on “whataboutism,” a strategy that calls attention to unrelated violent events, often in other parts of the world, to diminish the importance of breaking news. “It’s the in-group, out-group dynamics of society. We always want to find an ‘other.’ That way, we can take away their humanity, and kill them. That’s humanity in a nutshell — and you can see those social forces online, and in real time through these tweets,” she said. Sporer is working on a more in-depth analysis of tweets following the Orlando and Paris massacres, the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the San Bernardino attack, the article states. “If we’re worried about the recruitment and radicalization of Westerners, it doesn’t matter who’s tweeting this. All that matters is the message, and who’s reading it — who’s going to take that in, and make it part of their own identity,” said Sporer.