ISIS at its apogee: the Arabic discourse on Twitter and what we can learn from that about ISIS support and Foreign Fighters

TL;DR

This study analyzes 26.2 million Arabic tweets during ISIS's peak to measure support, understand opinion trends linked to events, and explore the relationship between online sentiment and foreign fighter recruitment.

Contribution

It provides a large-scale analysis of Arabic Twitter data to assess ISIS support, opinion dynamics, and the connection to foreign fighter movements, offering new insights into online radicalization.

Findings

Identified support and opposition levels toward ISIS in Arab online communities.

Linked opinion shifts to specific daily events influencing support.

Explored the correlation between online sentiment and foreign fighters' recruitment.

Abstract

We analyze 26.2 million comments published in Arabic language on Twitter, from July 2014 to January 2015, when ISIS' strength reached its peak and the group was prominently expanding the territorial area under its control. By doing that, we are able to measure the share of support and aversion toward the Islamic State within the online Arab communities. We then investigate two specific topics. First, by exploiting the time-granularity of the tweets, we link the opinions with daily events to understand the main determinants of the changing trend in support toward ISIS. Second, by taking advantage of the geographical locations of tweets, we explore the relationship between online opinions across countries and the number of foreign fighters joining ISIS.