Mapping a Social Media Ecosystem: Outlinking on Gab & Twitter Amongst the Australian Far-right Milieu

Abstract

Attention to the internet and the online spaces in which violent extremists interact and spread content has increased over the past decades. More recently, that attention has shifted from understanding how groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State use the internet to spread propaganda to understanding the broader internet environment and, specifically, far-right violent extremist activities within it. This focus on how far right violent extremist—including far-right racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (REMVEs) within them—create, use, and exploit the online networks in which they exist to promote their hateful ideology and reach has largely focused on North America and Europe. However, in recent years, examinations of those online dynamics elsewhere, including in Australia, is increasing. Far right movements have been active in Australia for decades. While these movements are not necessarily extremist nor violent, understanding how violent far right extremists and REMVEs interact within or seek to exploit these broader communities is important in further understanding the tactics, reach, and impact of REMVEs in Australia. This is particularly important in the online space access to broader networks of individuals and ideas is increasingly expanding. Adding to a steadily expanding body of knowledge examining online activities and networks of both broader far right as well as violent extremist far right populations in Australia, this paper presents a data-driven examination of the online ecosystems in which identified Australian far-right violent extremists exist and interact,1 as mapped by user generated uniform resource locators (URL), or ‘links’, to internet locations gathered from two online social platforms—Twitter and Gab. This link-based analysis has been used in previous studies of online extremism to map the platforms and content shared in online spaces and provide further detail on the online ecosystems in which extremists interact. Data incorporating the links was automatically collected from Twitter and Gab posts from users existing within the online milieu in which those identified far right extremists were connected. The data was collected over three discrete one-month periods spanning 2019, the year in which an Australian far right violent extremist carried out the Christchurch attack. Networks of links expanding out from the Twitter and Gab accounts were mapped in two ways to explore the extent and nature of the online ecosystems in which these identified far right Australian violent extremists are connected, including: To map the extent and nature of these ecosystems (e.g., the extent to which other online platforms are used and connected to one another), the project mapped where the most highly engaged links connect out to (i.e., website domain names), and To explore the nature of content being spread within those ecosystems, what sorts of content is found at the end of the most highly engaged links. The most highly engaged hashtags from across this time are also presented for additional thematic analysis. The mapping of links illustrated the interconnectedness of a social media ecosystem consisting of multiple platforms that were identified as having different purposes and functions. Importantly, no links to explicitly violent or illegal activity were identified among the top-most highly engaged sites. The paper discusses the implications of the findings in light of this for future policy, practice, and research focused on understanding the online ecosystems in which identified REMVE actors are connected and the types of thematic content shared and additional implications in light of the types of non-violent content shared within them.