Chua, Alton Y.K. and Banerjee, Snehasish orcid.org/0000-0001-6355-0470 (2020) The Topic of Terrorism on Yahoo! Answers:Questions, Answers and Users’ Anonymity. Aslib Journal of Information Management. pp. 1-16. ISSN 2050-3806
Abstract
This paper explores the use of community question answering sites (CQAs) on the topic of terrorism. Three research questions are investigated: What are the dominant themes reflected in terrorism-related questions? How do answer characteristics vary with question themes? How does users’ anonymity relate to question themes and answer characteristics? Data include 300 questions that attracted 2,194 answers on the CQA Yahoo! Answers. Content analysis was employed. The questions reflected the community’s information needs ranging from the life of extremists to counter-terrorism policies. Answers were laden with negative emotions reflecting hate speech and Islamophobia, making claims that were rarely verifiable. Users who posted sensitive content generally remained anonymous. This paper raises awareness of how CQAs are used to exchange information about sensitive topics such as terrorism. It calls for governments and law enforcement agencies to collaborate with major social media companies to develop a process for cross-platform blacklisting of users and content, as well as identifying those who are vulnerable. Theoretically, it contributes to the academic discourse on terrorism in CQAs by exploring the type of questions asked, and the sort of answers they attract. Methodologically, the paper serves to enrich the literature around terrorism and social media that has hitherto mostly drawn data from Facebook and Twitter.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details. |
Keywords: | Community question answering,Terrorism,Online anonymity,Answer characteristics,Online hate speech,Question themes |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Social Sciences (York) > The York Management School |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 03 Dec 2019 00:20 |
Last Modified: | 29 Jan 2025 00:07 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-08-2019-0204 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1108/AJIM-08-2019-0204 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:154122 |