Are you Charlie or Ahmed? Cultural pluralism in Charlie Hebdo response

on Twitter

Jisun An, Haewoon Kwak, Yelena Mejova, Sonia Alonso Saenz De Oger*, and Braulio Gomez Fortes**

Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), *: Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar,

**: Deusto University, Spain

ICWSM  2016

2015 Charlie Hebdo Shooting

A radical defense of freedom of speech

A defense of the

compatibility between Islam and

freedom of speech

#jesuischarlie

#jesuis charlie #jesuis

charlie#jesuisahmed

#jesuisahmed

What social factors contributes to reactions on Twitter?

Culture, religion, …

Offline context

Personal connection

What social factors affect your opinion?

Clash of Civilization

Density Theory

Interdependence Theory

Theories behind each dimension

Our goal: To understand the social factors that contribute to online individual behavior

Clash of Civilization

Density Theory

Interdependence Theory

Our goal: To understand the social factors that contribute to online individual behavior

Clash of Civilization

Density Theory

Interdependence Theory

“The fundamental source

of conflict in this new world will not be

primarily ideological or primarily economic.

…

The dominating source of

conflict will be cultural.”

by Samuel P. Huntington

Charlie Hebdo and Clash of civilization

Western Christian civilization

Islamic civilization

Charlie Hebdo and Clash of civilization

Western Christian civilization

Islamic civilization

A higher proportion of pro-Muslim tweets

(#JSA)

Charlie Hebdo and Clash of civilization

Western Christian civilization

Islamic civilization

A higher proportion of pro-free speech

tweets (#JSC)

Our goal: To understand the social factors that contribute to online individual behavior

Clash of Civilisation

Density Theory

Interdependence Theory

Density theory

“Individual behavior is density dependent and hence varies as a function of aggregate population

characteristics” by huckfeldt, 2009

For Westerners,

their behaviour or attitude towards Charlie Hebdo attack varies as a function of the % of muslim.

Possible reactions of Westerners by prominent of Muslim diasporas

Understanding and empathy

Possible reactions of Westerners by prominent of Muslim diasporas

Uand empathy

Threats and fear

Density theory

the proportion of Muslims in the population (Aggregated population characteristic)

the proportion

of pro-Muslim

tweets

(Reaction of Westerners)

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Muslim tweets.

[H2a] More Muslims, More Understanding

Density theory

the proportion of Muslims in the population

the proportion

of pro-Muslim

tweets

[H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H2b] More Muslims, More Fear

Our goal: To understand the social factors that contribute to online individual behavior

Clash of Civilisation

Density Theory

Interdependence Theory

By interacting with others on a daily basis

we negotiate relationships in order

to derive some benefit, and in this process

we change ourselves.

[H3] Within mixed Arab/non-Arab networks, users are likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

Interdependence theory

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] Within mixed Arab/non-Arab networks, users are likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher population[H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] Within likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Christian civilisation countriestweets by users in the

Western and Islamic “civilization”

Location of a user Muslim identification

Social network

Western and Islamic “civilizations”

11M tweets with #CharlieHebdo, #JeSuisCharlie, and #JeSuisAhmed

Twitter Data

#Charlie Hebdo

#JeSuis Charlie

#JeSuis Ahmed All

Rick’s dataset 7.1M (2M)

6.5M (2M)

264K (170K)

11M (3M)

Remove users having less than 2 tweets or more than 148 tweets

8.8M (1.4M)

Locating users: Geotagged + Yahoo! PlaceMaker

4M (642K)

39 countries of interests

1.37M (290K)

1.62M (309K)

42K (26K)

3M (464K)

Social network932M tweets, 23M mentioned user

276M links (0.6% are reciprocal)

3M (464K)

IdentificationMuslim

ccc

VS

Muslim Non-Muslim

Identification

“94% of Arabs are Muslims” by CIA, The World Factbook 2010

MuslimArabic

*Exceptions: Iran and Turkey

Arabic Identification

By Language: Any user who

tweets in Arabic has a name in Arabic set their language on Twitter as Arabic

By Arabic names in English: We build a dictionary of 4,401 Arabic names in English using baby name lexicons.

majority voting with

CLD2, langid.py, and LangDetect

Arabic Identification

Out of 464K users, 5.3% of users (23,924) are “Arab”.

We focus on “Western” users

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] Within mixed Arab/non-Arab networks, users are likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Percentage of tweets mentioning each hashtags

The relative proportion of #JSC to #JSA is strikingly different in two groups

For Arab, 1 #JSA tweet / 10 #JSC tweet For Non-Arab, 1 #JSA tweet / 43 #JSC tweet

Percentage of tweets mentioning each hashtags

The relative proportion of #JSC to #JSA is strikingly different in two groups

For Arab, 1 #JSA tweet / 10 #JSC tweet For Non-Arab, 1 #JSA tweet / 43 #JSC tweet

Support for H

1?

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Weak support

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Weak support

The proportion of Muslims in the population vs. the proportion of pro-Islam tweets

#JSA tweets #JSC + #JSA tweets

*we exclude Turkey and Iran

r=0.745 r=0.845 r=0.675

Westerners who live in Middle Eastern countries tend to tweet more with #JSA than those who live

in the West

*we exclude Turkey and Iran

r=0.745 r=0.845 r=0.675

Westerners in the Middle East tend to tweet more with #JSA than those who live in the West

Non-Arab users

r=0.845

r=0.745 r=0.845 r=0.675

Arab in the West tend to tweet more with #JSC than those who live in the Middle East

Arab users

*we exclude Turkey and Iran

r=0.675

Our data shows …

r=0.845

Westerners  in  Middle-­‐east

Westerners  in  West

If only clash of civilisation mattered,

then the group should look like this,

Pseudo Graph

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Mixed

Support

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] Within mixed Arab/non-Arab networks, users are likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Mixed

Support

A Westerner

ccc

ccc

ccc

ccc

ccc

ccc

Arab mention

Arab mention

Non-Arab

Non-ArabNon-Arab

Non-Arab

Non-Arab

Non-Arab

A Westerner

Mean percentage of JSA tweets for four user groups in conditions with and without Arab mentions.

How does Arab mention affect #JSA tweeting behavior?

Mean percentage of JSA tweets for four user groups in conditions with and without Arab mentions.

The personal mentions in users’ interactions do affect

1.263.03

5.37

9.86

2.83

15.76

Pearson and Spearman correlations of % of JSA tweets to % of Arab mentions in the mention

network by different user groups.

More Arab mentions, more #JSA tweets

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] Within mixed Arab/non-Arab networks, users are likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Mixed

Support

Support

Density  theory

Interdependence  theory

Clash  of  civilization

[H2a] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the higher the proportion of pro-Islam tweets. [H2b] The higher the proportion of Muslims in the population, the lower the proportion of pro-Islam tweets.

[H3] Within mixed Arab/non-Arab networks, users are likely to tweet similar content to that of their neighborhood.

[H1] More pro-free speech tweets by users in Western Christian civilisation countries & more pro-Muslim tweets by users in the islamic civilisation countries.

Mixed

Support

Support

Takeaway

Clash of civilization has a mixed result, needs to be rejected or at least qualified, in favor of social context theories.

Social context is important in examining online behavior.

Both offline social context and personal mentions in users’ interactions do affect the likelihood of expressing an opinion favorable to #JeSuisAhmed.

“Offline” distinction is a stronger predictor of online behavior.

QCRI Georgetown University, Qatar

Deusto University, Spain

@JisunAn, @haewoon, @yelenamejova Sonia Alonso Saenz De Oger Braulio Gomez Fortes

Are you Charlie or Ahmed? Cultural pluralism in Charlie Hebdo response

on Twitter