Measuring the Alt-Right’s Radicalization

Disturbingly, the social media activity of these hate groups suggests that the threat of violence is increasing. White nationalists’ online presence continues to grow, and after surveying a network of over 27,000 Nazi apologists, KKK members, and separatists, it’s clear that these groups are becoming measurably more radicalized every month.

Even though they typically hide their real identities behind the anonymity afforded by social media, alt-right Twitter users nevertheless clearly communicate their political affiliations. Using machine-learning algorithms to interpret the language in Twitter profile descriptions, and computer vision algorithms to identify pro-Nazi symbols in profile avatars, my colleagues at New Knowledge and I identified over 3,500 radical extremists amongst the larger network of 27,000 accounts that are associated with the alt-right.

Many hundreds of users display the swastika, while others choose alternative symbols associated with hate groups, such as the Celtic cross, Iron cross, and insignia of the Nazi paramilitary group, Schutzstaffel, also known as the SS.

Swastikas dedicated by our computer vision algorithm, discovered in the alt-right network on Twitter

Many others explicitly declared their allegiance to neo-Nazi and white separatist movements in the text of their profiles by proclaiming “white pride,” or explicitly identifying themselves as “white nationalists.” Almost everyone in the alt-right network is an enthusiastic and vocal supporter of Donald Trump, through the core group of extremists is more likely to mention their race, white nationalism, and national socialism than any presidential candidate.

On the left, words found most often in the larger network of alt-right Twitter profiles. On the right, words found most often in white extremist profiles.

Most importantly, analyzing the tweets of this core group of 3,500 extremists reveals a warped, dangerous worldview that openly advocates for murder and genocide.

Using recent advances in machine-assisted text analysis, we then quantified this racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and violent perspective based on the context in which authors use relevant keywords. For example, in typical English, like a mainstream newspaper article, the word “Jewish” is statistically similar to words like “Muslim” and “Christian.” Meaning that mainstream authors usually rely on the word “Jewish” to describe someone or something religious.

On the contrary, in tweets by white extremists, the word “Jewish” is used in a totally different context, where it is statistically similar to words like “communist,” “homosexual,” “anti-white,” and “satanic.”

White extremists are therefore more likely to use the word “Jewish” to signify something they hate, rather than as a religious description. This is no surprise, but it provides an objective metric for understanding how the white extremist perspective diverges from the mainstream.

Imagine two poles at either end of a spectrum that spans from the moderate middle to the potentially violent, radicalized fringe — this metric places a community somewhere on that spectrum. It’s a kind of radicalization score, and those who score highly are ideologically similar to the most violent, dangerous alt-right extremists on Twitter.

When the radicalization score is applied to tweets from the broader alt-right network, it’s clear that the entire white nationalist community is embracing an increasingly extreme ideology. The social media content of white nationalists in July was 25% more radicalized than it was in January, and the rate of radicalization is increasing exponentially.