Social Media & Cultural Warfare: A Synopsis

Throughout ever research project in the social Web, we encounter the nasty stuff. From spam and porn content through to anti-societal groups and racism. Just as there is much good to social media, there is the bad. One of these more frightening aspects is what we term “Cultural Cyber Warfare.” This means information (videos, blogs, tweets etc.) that is created by one cultural/ethnic/religious group (all non-state actors) against another. Such hate content has been around for centuries in various forms, sometimes as state-sanctioned propaganda and at other times by non-state actors and groups.

With social medias and current technologies however, such rhetoric is far easier to create and broadcast than ever before. For the most part, such destructive content is seen for what it is and easily dismissed. But sometimes we argue, this is not the right way to view such content. Our research results are indicating that radical groups and other non-state actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media technologies to conduct information warfare or psyops. And it may have a real-world effect on peace negotiations in fragile or conflict ridden states, between religios groups in fragile states and so on.

In the case of Iran, we can see that the Basij has become very sophisticated and coordinated in their counter-revolutionary tactics through blogs, forums, Facebook and other social networking sites. They regularly counter claims by would-be revolutionaries. Information the Basij gains on Iranians living in Iran via Iranian diaspora is often used to arrest and imprison the resident Iranians.

Throughout YouTube and other video sites there are Islamic fundamentalist videos that aim to recruit youth and others and even convert more moderate and liberal Muslims (which is the majority of Muslims anyway.) Increasingly, we see pro-Palestinian groups creating anti-Israeli propaganda.

There are several ways that such information warfare in social media can spill into the real-world and here are some of them;

• Drive recruiting of youth or disenfranchised people, resulting in increased activists that can lead to larger protests on city streets
• Create perceived tensions between affected groups that hampers negotiating efforts
• Unnoticed, this tension can undermine relations between communities and state actors may not understand underlying reasons
• Aggressor states may use so-called “civil society” groups or non-state actors to conduct psyops at a distance to disrupt negotiations or identify potential protestors and dissidents to arrest, compromising legitimate protest.
• Flushing out opponents for violent acts

Governments and other organizations, including multi-national companies operating in fragile states will need to pay ever more closer attention to these issues to avoid security risk for personnel and to provide situational awareness for negotiations and other international relations purposes. Such activity will only increase in the coming years as regions like the Middle East and Western Africa undergo huge political and societal shifts.

The Role of Social Media Research in Foreign Policy

The role of social medias in the Arab Spring is being intensely analysed (and we’re among those analyzing) and was perhaps the crux point of governments and other organizations seeing the value of social medias in civil society change. The failed green revolution in Iran in 2009 was arguably the opening gambit of social medias role in political change. Whether social media played a pivotal role however, is up for debate.

Revolutions aside, social medias offer more opportunities to governments, IGO‘s, NGO’s and multi-national corporations for knowledge, context and understanding  of civil society than has been possible before. No longer is social media usage purely for entertainment value – and those that think it is, may be missing critical insights.

We have conducted a number of research projects into social media for public sector and private sector clients on foreign policy issues. Through these projects (and our in-house research) we’ve come to gain a very deep appreciation, as have our clients, into the value social medias can play. Among them are;

Citizen Views & Opinions in Recovering States: A prime example here is Haiti. After the cholera outbreak in 2010, many Haitians and Haitian diaspora took to social media channels to discuss the issue. Chief among them was the evolution of a mythology or conspiracy theory that the UN was out to poison them. This is certainly not the case. But such views become valid perceptions and create communications gaps and strained relationships between those giving and receiving aid. Research into social media can identofy such issues and enable improved communications.

Trade Negotiation Issues: One of our recent research projects helped a government to identify why its attempts to communicate with the business community in a foreign country weren’t going so well. Our research showed that the target business community was referring to the bilateral trade agreement in a completely different way – simply because of a cultural issue of language. By taking an innovative step in looking at online chatter, the government was able to change its communications tactics and better engage the audience more effectively.

Domestic Views on Foreign Policy: Citizens at home have their views on their governments activities in foreign countries; especially when it comes to conflicts where military personnel are at risk. Understanding the views, opinions and mood of citizens at home can help a government to develop effective communications to its citizens and understand if the engagement in a foreign country may cause significant unrest in the civil population.

Peace Operations: Today’s peace operations in fragile states in or just coming out of conflict are delicate and far more complex than they used to be. Citizens in fragile states are also more connected to the Web than is often realized; through both broadband access and mobile devices. In fact, the use of social medias via mobile devices is quite significant – enough for viable research. Monitoring and analyzing citizens commentary can help understand citizen views, identify areas at risk for aid delivery and more.

There are more areas where such research can have an impact. Often, online research is a complement to traditional methodologies such as interviews and focus groups, providing a layer of insight not possible before.

Tongue Twisting Social Media: On Digital Slang

We dem hazum data dis now. Confused? You just don’t happen to speak/write in that particular Caribbean island slang I guess. Then lets toss in not just Hatian creole but the online text version of Haitian creole. Or how about the variation of Pashto used by Afghans online? Then there’s the text version of Ebonics and the Jersey Shore variations. In ethnic and cultural group research online, language understanding is perhaps the largest hurdle. Whether for ethnic marketing or reaching civil society for their views and opinions on policy. Perhaps you’re a non-profit looking to engage online populations?

Unfortunately Google Translate doesn’t cover slang, patois and regional dialect variations. In fact no translation tool can handle these issues. Another challenge we’ve noted in online language use is that it is always evolving. No one uses the Queen’s English in blog posts – okay, maybe English majors and literary types. They are a tiny market though.

If you’re looking to reach ethnic groups online, for marketing or public policy issues, understanding online language use is critical. In our research in Africa, we’ve found that the use of English or French is always mingled with tribal elements. When different ethnic groups meet in online forums where they may be discussing political issues or products, they will identify themselves via their ethnic group or tribe/clan. This helps us from a researcher perspective, but can make for an interesting time putting this into usable information.

Example of Caribbean slang used online:

Sparky = money

:bouncy::bouncy: = stoned or drugs (note also the use of colons)

likker ga kill we = Booze will kill you

lip shet = Keep your mouth closed

Sands and chicken sous = booze reference, means drinking

If you’re looking for software to conduct textual analysis (e.g. sentiment), don’t bother. The sheer volume of text data required to provide a reasonable sample size and avoid significant false positives is simply not available online. The other challenge is the constant shifting of terms and meanings in today’s fast-paced cyber world. In addition, characters such as colons and semi-colons plus those for emoticons are also often used, adding a significant level of automation challenges to any software.

We’ve also noted the influence of Western entertainment and products in slang terms in countries like India, Ghana, Sudan, Emirates and a number of others. A product name or use of the product can take on an actual meaning, like Kleenex becoming a word used for tissues, even though it’s a product. We saw in some Caribbean research that Gosling’s rum was picked up for a time as “git gosled” (pro: gozzled) and in India we saw the term “makked” referencing the Gilette Mach series of razors, it was a positive use for this brand. But this shows how digital language adapts swiftly in online communities and how products and issues are absorbed. Our research into the referendum in Sudan two years ago showed a number of Southern Sudanese using the term “kartoomed”. In this case it meant the individual in question was loyal to the government in Khartoum and was therefor deemed against secession from the north.

Identifying language use, cultural, ethnic and regional/local variations is critical when looking to engage with ethnic audiences. Not doing this can miss a critical piece of understanding who and where to engage online and in the real world where so many ideas and online discussion translates to real-world activity.

Social Media Use in Crises Situations

We’ve completed several research studies on the use of social media during and after natural disasters now, in Canada, U.S. and UK (our own and from other sources.) From our research and reviews of other case studies, we’ve identified the four primary ways that citizens use social media technologies during natural disasters. We see such uses increasing in the future.

1. Family & Friends Communication: To connect with family members between affected and unaffected communities/areas (or within affected communities) for situation updates and planning responses. This is the most popular use. Primary tools used are Twitter, Facebook and/or a blog. We noted extensive use of mobile apps, but txting is not significant, which is interesting in and of itself.

2. Situation Updates: Neighbours and communities share critical information between each other such as; road closures, power outages, fires, accidents and other related damages. This is rarely shared however, with local authorities, yet is publicly available (except perhaps in closed social networks such as Facebook.)

3. Situational/Supplemental Awareness: We’ve found that in a number of cases (over 80%) citizens rely less and less on authority communication, especially through traditional channels (television, radio, phone.) In part this may be due to the timeliness of these mediums to get a message out by government or news media. This information from authorities on situational developments has become supplemented by citizens using social media channels to share information in text, image and video format.

4. Services Access Assistance: Citizens would use social media channels to provide each other with ways and means to contact different services they may need after a crisis and sometimes during. They may share methods on “how” to access a service including how to “frame” the situation to elicit a better response from government agencies/services.

These findings can better help governments and other response/recovery services to understand the communication taking place between citizens. Social Media channels may help governments reach citizens more effectively while also monitoring public uploading of content to gain insights into areas where emergency services may be needed they may not otherwise have been able to receive.

Some governments in the US and Canada are building web-based applications to integrate social media feeds into a centralized site that may include a Google Map mashup to provide situational reporting, such as the “Snowmaggedon” snow storm in 2010 in Washington, DC.

Google+ vs. Facebook: A Human Approach

Being as we are constantly researching social media use and activity for clients, I guess we can’t help but weigh in on the Google+ and Facebook battle that opened up with last week’s announcement of Google+ (with my trial so far, I’m exceedingly impressed with Google+)…so as we spoke with our team members who are sociologists and anthropologists one glaring fact came to our attention: Google has taken the time to look at how people use the web and adapted Google+ in this manner. Facebook does not take this approach, they force people to behave a certain way. This is a vital, perhaps critical, difference and why Google+ may take the win in the long run.

The Privacy Battle
Facebook’s constant battle on privacy issues is a boon to Google+ who’s sorted out this issue well with Circles. On the ease of use for privacy on what is or isn’t shared, Google+ is a clear winner. Google learned a lesson from the launch of Buzz and no doubt closely looking at Facebook’s approach to this issue. Every time Facebook launches a new service or tweaks their system, there are howls of protest. Facebook is one of the top 10 most hated companies in America. Google stepped back from the trees and thought this through carefully.

The Opposing Philosophy of Privacy & Sharing
Seemingly, Facebook just doesn’t care about your privacy. if it does, its actions certainly don’t portray this. Not to say Google hasn’t had its slip ups as with Buzz, but it would appear that Google has a different approach to privacy at a fundamental level. Zuckerburg wields influence much like Apple’s Steve Jobs…and one can see that privacy is not something Zuckerburg is concerned with to any serious degree. When it comes to sharing, the “Wall” on Facebook has become one sorry state of affairs. Yes, you can manage who sees what, but it is insanely difficult, where Circles is easy and intuitive. Facebook just doesn’t understand human communications and how people want to share. This is a critical point in social media channels. Google has spent some time to understand how people share information and lifestyle communications; they are interested in how humans naturally behave. A vital, opposing philosophy to Facebook.

Segments & Lifestyle or Social Behaviour
What Google understands is that as humans, we have different social groups we connect with. Workers, family and hobbies or interests. Therefore we share different information with different people in different ways, at different times and frequencies. Facebook does not understand this, or if they do, they haven’t made it easy. The new sidebar for “easier chat” is not an answer to Circles, it is squirrely attempt at a new feature that adds little or no value.

Natural vs. Forced Behaviours
On our team we have sociologists and anthropologists who weigh in on almost every research project. This because how people behave in a social network provides critical insight for market research and public policy research. What we can very clearly see with Google+ is that as they spent time to understand privacy and sharing behaviours, they used their vast amount of data from other channels they own (Blogger, YouTube etc.) to understand how people behave online…and here’s the real kicker in Google’s approach – they built Google+ around how people naturally behave online, whereas Facebook forces you into their system. This fact alone is what we suspect will lead to a very good end product from Google. They’re just getting started with Google+ and we can’t wait to see what’s next.