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Social Media Analysis

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Commentary
The Threat of Deepfakes
Various AI technologies are ripe for use in disinformation campaigns. Deepfake videos represent an obvious threat, but voice cloning, deepfake images, and generative text also merit concern. And websites now offer access to deepfake services.
Jul 6, 2022
Report
How Violent Extremists Behave Online
Exploitation of the internet by violent extremists is as old as the technology itself. But ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE) actors generally, and especially in online spaces, have been adapting to and adopting the evolving technological landscape in more sophisticated ways.
Jun 28, 2023

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Dissertation
Young Adult Relationship Dynamics on Instagram: An Emerging Identity Perspective
Investigates the effects of Instagram on its users, specifically focusing on potential dynamics leading to negative mental health impacts.
Sep 19, 2023
Commentary
The Promise—and Pitfalls—of Researching Extremism Online
How big of a problem is extremism in the United States and around the world? Is it getting worse? Are social media platforms responsible, or did the internet simply reveal existing trends? We have few answers because this research is easy to do poorly and hard to do well.
Jul 17, 2023
Report
Comparing Taliban Social Media Usage by Language: Who's Speaking and What's Being Said
Focusing on the economy, relationships with other militant groups and neighboring countries, and women's status in Afghan society, the authors examined whether Taliban social media messaging across various regional languages was similar or different.
Apr 25, 2023
Report
The U.S. Air Force Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Values on Social Media: A Proof-of-Concept Examination of How Air Force–Affiliated Accounts Represent the Service Online
This report presents a proof-of-concept to assess the online behavior of U.S. Air Force (USAF)-affiliated users over social media, specifically in regard to USAF diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
Feb 22, 2023
Commentary
Elon Musk May Have a Point About Bots on Twitter
Twitter has a deep bench of engineers working for the company. They have access to trillions of data points on their over 300 million monthly active users. Why has a company this size struggled to clean up its platform?
Sep 23, 2022
Announcement
Fake RAND Report on 'Weakening Germany'
A supposedly leaked RAND report about a bizarre U.S. conspiracy to “weaken Germany” is fake. Genuine RAND research, analysis, and commentary on the war in Ukraine may be found at rand.org.
Sep 14, 2022
Journal Article
Information Warfare: Methods to Counter Disinformation
We consider the nature of disinformation and its use in the hybrid warfare domain, before examining the problem through frames of planning approach, truth theory, systems thinking, and military strategy.
Sep 8, 2022
Blog
Back to School, Vaccinating Kids, Space Security: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on the well-being of America's educators, the effort to vaccinate kids and teens, security in outer space, and more.
Sep 2, 2022
Research Brief
A U.S. National Strategy Is Needed to Counter Violent Extremism
Users in the United States are overwhelmingly responsible for racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE) discourse online. Strategies that focus on organizations or individuals likely will not work to counter REMVE because the movement is diffuse and leaderless.
Aug 22, 2022
Report
An Exploratory Examination of Agent-Based Modeling for the Study of Social Movements
The authors of this report explore the use of agent-based modeling as a method for studying the effects of information and communications technologies on the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of social movements over time.
Aug 16, 2022
Report
Map of Online Violent Extremist Rhetoric Can Inform Counter-Efforts
An analysis of White identity terrorism and racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism discourse on social media finds that this content is largely created and fueled by users in the United States. A national strategy to counter these threats is needed.
Jun 7, 2022
Report
Russia's Information Warfare with the West
Popular portrayals of the Russian disinformation machine imply an organized and well-resourced operation, but evidence suggests that it is neither. Nonetheless, Russian social media activity can be harmful to U.S. interests and is likely to evolve.
Jun 7, 2022
Periodical
RAND Review: May-June 2022
The cover story explores what prison-based programs are available to help incarcerated parents and their children. Another feature examines ways to help social media users navigate the online extremist ecosystem.
May 11, 2022
Report
Leveraging Machine Learning for Operation Assessment
This report shows how machine learning (ML) can support assessment of military operations by describing and illustrating the use of ML in systematically extracting assessment-relevant insights from intelligence, operational, and media reporting.
May 9, 2022
Blog
How Data Can Help Refugees, Homelessness in L.A., Harm Reduction: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on tapping into Facebook data to help refugees, addressing homelessness in Los Angeles, understanding burnout among health care providers, and more.
May 6, 2022
Essay
How to Avoid Extremism on Social Media
Extremist groups have been trolling the internet for decades, and they have learned to temper their words and disguise their intentions. A new scorecard can help users—or parents, or advertisers, or the social media companies themselves—understand when they might be interacting with extremist content.
May 3, 2022
Essay
Tracking Migration Amid War and Disease
Researchers from RAND and RAND Europe have been working on a way to better track migrant numbers, country by country and state by state, in almost real time. They do it by tapping into one of the largest information-gathering operations on the planet, Facebook.
Apr 28, 2022
Testimony
Extremist Use of Online Spaces
Extremist content can be found in all corners of the internet. How do the characteristics of online spaces contribute to individual radicalization? And how may the internet have helped foster conditions that contributed to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol?
Apr 27, 2022

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Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

William Marcellino

Senior Behavioral and Social Scientist

Bill Marcellino is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, professor of text analytics at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University and Johns Hopkins University. He was trained as a sociolinguist and corpus linguist, and at RAND he develops AI applications,…
Mark Cabling

Analyst

Mark Cabling is an analyst at RAND Europe in health and wellbeing, working on health care innovation research. He works on projects that involve rapid evidence assessments for clients such as Sanofi and Merck Europe, exploring the indirect burden of seasonal influenza and R&D cost transparency,…

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