Social Media Analytics for Intelligence and Countering Violent Extremism

Abstract

Social media analytics are increasingly incorporated into security practices due to the rise in online criminal and extremist activities. Social media research, however, has not become established in either intelligence practice or academic-based approach. This chapter aims to fill the gap by discussing collection methods and analytical tools for the study of social media data for intelligence and countering violent extremism: social network analysis, sentiment analysis, multilingual analysis, geo-coding, automated entity extraction, semantic search, and multimedia analysis. While technological capabilities of social media analytics are improving rapidly, it needs to be complemented with nuanced perspectives from the social sciences. Understanding of the epistemology of social media and dynamics between the online-offline interaction as well as data access will put practitioners in a better position to reap the benefits of the social media. Attention should be given to train practitioners in relevant technological skills while also incorporating social science knowledge.