Technology has dramatically changed the way criminals conduct their illicit activities. Specifically, the Internet has become a major facilitator of online human sex trafficking. Traffickers are using these technologies to market their victims which presents new challenges for efforts to combat sex trafficking. This study used knowledge management principles and natural language processing methods to develop an improved ontology of online sex trafficking ads. The language of these ads is constantly evolving; therefore, this study explored the role of a new type of indicator, emoticons, to the ontology of human trafficking indicators.

No abstract

Social media and the interactive Web have enabled human traffickers to lure victims and then sell them faster and in greater safety than ever before. However, these same tools have also enabled investigators in their search for victims and criminals. Authors used system development action research methodology to create and apply a prototype designed to identify victims of human sex trafficking by analyzing online ads. The prototype used a knowledge management approach of generating actionable intelligence by applying a set of strong filters based on an ontology to identify potential victims. Authors used the prototype to analyze a dataset generated from online ads from southern California and used the results of this process to generate a revised prototype that included the use of machine learning and text mining enhancements. An unexpected outcome of the second dataset was the discovery of the use of emojis in an expanded ontology.

No abstract

No abstract