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The Perils of Estimating Disengagement Effects of Deadly Terrorist Attacks Utilizing Social Media Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2022

Tanja Marie Hansen Open the ORCID record for Tanja Marie Hansen [Opens in a new window]
Tanja Marie Hansen*
Affiliation:
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
*
E-mail: tanja@ps.au.dk
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Abstract

This comment discusses the impact of social media rule enforcement protocols on research on online data sources. It argues that the conclusions of the article ‘Do Islamic State's Deadly Attacks Disengage, Deter, or Mobilize Supporters?’ concerning the recruitment effects of deadly attacks cannot be assumed to hold when considering the timing of Twitter account suspensions. It highlights four ways in which suspensions can confound evidence of demobilization despite the introduction of control variables and fixed-effects model specifications. All change the composition of the sample in four non-random ways. First, suspending connected Islamic State accounts may result in follower loss. Secondly, Twitter suspension procedures may be tied to account characteristics, such as follower accrual rates. Thirdly, suspended accounts that re-emerge introduce replication bias. Fourthly, account closure may reflect user movement to other platforms in response to changing security environments following deadly attacks. In conclusion, caution is advised when platform-introduced variation risks altering the sample composition in non-random ways.

Keywords

political violenceterrorismsignalingsocial media data
Type
Comment
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 1482 - 1489
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Supplementary material: Link

Hansen Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/UY3HTY
Link
Supplementary material: File

Hansen supplementary material

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