Please register for the CV & Online Identity Workshop below.

Organized crime groups can leverage violence and other unlawful activities to destabilize governments and replace their control of territory , becoming criminal insurgencies. Among these , dark networks of Latin America have been considerably understudied as political and criminal actors, yet present similar risks to traditional terrorist entities. This thesis aims to advance knowledge of the cyber-dynamics of criminal insurgency by investigating the presence of Brazilian organized crime on social media.

This dissertation focuses four Latin-American organized criminal groups operating in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the hotspots of criminal insurgency-- Comando Vermelho (CV), Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP), Amigos dos Amigos (ADA), and the Militias . Made possible by a careful groundwork of more than a year of observation and annotation of symbols, signals and patterns, Its structured around three distinct analytic contributions: The first on their temporal patterns of activity and possible triggering of violence. Secondly, mapping the scale of their communication networks. Finally, the third unit measures possible advantages in engagement and amplification enjoyed by criminal affiliates on social media. Collectively ,these efforts provide the first scientific inquiry into the digital lives of such dangerous actors.

The results demonstrate the existence of complex dynamics between criminal actors in social media, and a large presence, numbering over 70.000 individual nodes. This raises the possibility that such entities might be much more active in the public sphere than the literature assumes. These individuals take the risk of exposure, but receive more individual attention in some ways. Policymakers and platforms should take notice that this massive online footprint is a triple opportunity: a source of intelligence for law enforcement, of data for scientific analysis and perhaps the most enticing, opening the possibility of direct interventions to their behavior via the same social media spaces.

Committee:
Prof. Dr. David Lazer(Chair) - Northeastern University
Prof. Dr. Nick Beauchamp - Northeastern University
Prof. Dr. Max Abrahms - Northeastern University
Prof. Dr. Gisela Bichler - California State University: San Bernardino