Psychological examination of the signs of extremism in the users’ social network profiles

Abstract

This article is dedicated to determination of the psychological signs of extremism in the information posted by users in social networks. The object of this research is the semantic content of a social network profile. The subject of this research is the evidence of proclivity for extremism. The relevance of this research is substantiated by the need to detect materials and people who incite social, ethnic, national, political, racial and religious hostility, as well as promote extremist views on the Internet. The goal is to determine the signs of propensity for extremism based on the social network profile. The article employs expert analysis for revealing semantic content of profiles in the social network VKontakte; content analysis for studying the materials of profiles in the social network Vkontakte; methods of statistical analysis, such as factor analysis of the selected signs of extremist personality and cluster analysis of profiles. The acquired results allow formulating the criteria for identification of individuals with extremist orientation via analyzing user profiles in the social networks, as well as determining the extremist-oriented content on the Internet, and promptly responding the law enforcement agencies to the threat of antisocial behavior on the Internet platforms. The developed set of the signs of extremism allows carrying out preventive work among youth, indicating the main manifestations of “hazardous” Internet content for parents and pedagogues, as well as teenagers themselves.