Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-rvxtl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-23T04:41:41.877Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Technological Seduction and Self-Radicalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2018

MARK ALFANO ,
J. ADAM CARTER Open the ORCID record for J. ADAM CARTER [Opens in a new window]  and
MARC CHEONG
MARK ALFANO
Affiliation:
TU-DELFT & AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
J. ADAM CARTER
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]
MARC CHEONG
Affiliation:
MONASH UNIVERSITY
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviors ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist candidates. However, the mechanisms by which the Internet facilitates self-radicalization are disputed; some fault the individuals who end up self-radicalized, while others lay the blame on the technology itself. In this paper, we explore the role played by technological design decisions in online self-radicalization in its myriad guises, encompassing extreme as well as more mundane forms. We begin by characterizing the phenomenon of technological seduction. Next, we distinguish between top-down seduction and bottom-up seduction. We then situate both forms of technological seduction within the theoretical model of dynamical systems theory. We conclude by articulating strategies for combating online self-radicalization.

Keywords

technological seductionvirtue epistemologydigital humanitiesdynamical systems theoryphilosophy of technologynudge
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , Fall 2018 , pp. 298 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abraham, F. D., Abraham, R. H., and Shaw, C. D.. (1990) A Visual Introduction to Dynamical Systems Theory for Psychology. Santa Cruz, CA: Aerial Press.Google Scholar
Abrahams, Max. (2002) ‘What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy’. International Security, 32, 86–89.Google Scholar
Alemanno, Alberto. (2012) ‘Nudging Smokers: The Behavioural Turn of Tobacco Risk Regulation’. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 3, 32–42.Google Scholar
Alfano, M. (2013) Character as Moral Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Alfano, M. (2018) ‘The Nietzschean Precedent for Anti-reflective, Dialogical Agency’. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, e37, 12–13.Google Scholar
Alfano, M., and Skorburg, G.. (2018) ‘Extended Knowledge, the Recognition Heuristic, and Epistemic Injustice’. In Carter, J. A., Clark, A., Kallestrup, J., Palermos, O., and Pritchard, D. (eds.), Extended Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press), 239–65.Google Scholar
Alfano, M., Higgins, A., and Levernier, J.. (2018) ‘Identifying Virtues and Values through Obituary Data-mining’. Journal of Value Inquiry, 52, 59–79.Google Scholar
Beer, R. D. (1995) ‘A Dynamical Systems Perspective on Agent-environment Interaction’. Artificial Intelligence, 72, 173–215.Google Scholar
Benkler, Yochai, Faris, Robert, Roberts, Hal, and Zuckerman, Ethan. (2017) ‘Study: Breitbart-led Right-wing Media Ecosystem Altered Broader Media Agenda’. Columbia Journalism Review, March 3. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php.Google Scholar
Berman, Mark. (2016) ‘Prosecutors Say Dylann Roof “Self-Radicalized” Online, Wrote Another Manifesto in Jail’. Washington Post, August 22. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/22/prosecutors-say-accused-charleston-church-gunman-self-radicalized-online/?utm_term=.8a561f1dcb24.Google Scholar
Bisantz, A. M., Burns, C. M., and Fairbanks, R. J., eds. (2014) Cognitive Systems Engineering in Health Care. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Bjelopera, Jerome P. (2010) ‘American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat’. CRS Report for Congress. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R41416.pdf.Google Scholar
Byrne, Joanne, and Cheong, Marc. (2017) ‘The Algorithm as Human: A Cross-disciplinary Discussion of Anthropology in an Increasingly Data-driven World’. Talk given at the AAS/ASA/ASAANZ Shifting States Anthropology Conference. University of Adelaide.Google Scholar
Card, Stuart K., Moran, Thomas P., and Newell, Allen. (1980) ‘The Keystroke-level Model for User Performance Time with Interactive Systems’. Communications of the ACM, 23, 396–410.Google Scholar
Carter, J. A. (2017) ‘Intellectual Autonomy, Epistemic Dependence and Cognitive Enhancement’. Synthese. doi: 10.1007/s11229-017-1549-y.Google Scholar
Conly, Sarah. (2004) ‘Seduction, Rape, and Coercion’. Ethics, 115, 96–121.Google Scholar
Dayan, Eran, and Bar-Hillel, Maya. (2011) ‘Nudge to Nobesity II: Menu Positions Influence Food Orders’. Judgment and Decision Making, 6, 333–42.Google Scholar
Dillahunt, T. R., Brooks, C. A., and Gulati, S.. (2015) ‘Detecting and Visualizing Filter Bubbles in Google and Bing’. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New York: Association for Computing Machinery), 1851–56.Google Scholar
Doris, John. (2015) Talking to Ourselves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Brian. (2018) ‘Posts Indicate Suspect in Toronto Attack Was Radicalized on 4chan’. New York Magazine, April 24. http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/suspect-in-toronto-posts-about-incel-rebellion.html.Google Scholar
Flaxman, Seth, Goel, Sharad, and Rao, Justin M.. (2016) ‘Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption’. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80, 298–320.Google Scholar
Floridi, Luciano, and Sanders, Jeff W.. (2014) ‘On the Morality of Artificial Agents’. Minds and Machines, 14, 349–79.Google Scholar
Forrester, John. (1990) The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan, and Derrida. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Tristan. (2014) ‘How Technology Hijacks People's Minds’. http://www.tristanharris.com/essays/.Google Scholar
Heersmink, Richard. (2016) ‘The Internet, Cognitive Enhancement, and the Values of Cognition’. Minds and Machines, 26, 389–407.Google Scholar
Heersmink, Richard. (2017) ‘A Virtue Epistemology of the Internet: Search Engines, Intellectual Virtues, and Education’. Social Epistemology. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2017.1383530.Google Scholar
Holley, P. (2017) ‘YouTube is Tricking People who Search for ISIS Videos’. Washington Post, July 24. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/07/24/youtube-is-tricking-people-who-search-for-isis-videos/.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1998) ‘Retrieval Processes in Transactive memory Mystems’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 659.Google Scholar
Hollnagel, E., and Woods, D. D.. (1983) ‘Cognitive Systems Engineering: New Wine in New Bottles’. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 18, 583–600.Google Scholar
Hollnagel, E., and Woods, D. D.. (2005) Joint Cognitive Systems: Foundations of Cognitive Systems Engineering. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Holroyd, Jules, and Sweetman, Joseph. (2015) ‘The Heterogeneity of Implicit Bias’. In Brownstein, Michael and Saul, Jennifer (eds.), Implicit Bias and Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 80–103.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. ([1781] 1958) Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Smith, Norman Kemp. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Koralus, P., and Alfano, M.. (2017) ‘Reasons-based Moral Judgment and the Erotetic Theory’. In Bonnefon, J.-F. and Trémolière, B. (eds.), Moral Inferences (New York: Routledge), 77–106.Google Scholar
Koralus, P., and Mascarenhas, S.. (2013) ‘The Erotetic Theory of Reasoning: Bridges between Formal Semantics and the Psychology of Propositional Deductive Inference.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 27, 312–65.Google Scholar
Levy, N. (2017) ‘The Bad News about Fake News’. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 6, 20–36.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. (2018) ‘“Fiction is Outperforming Reality”: How YouTube's Algorithm Distorts Truth’. The Guardian, February 2. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/02/how-youtubes-algorithm-distorts-truth.Google Scholar
Majeed, Khader, Neo, Loo Seng, Ong, Gabriel, Mingyi, Eunice Tan, and Chin, Jeffrey, eds. (2016) Combating Violent Extremism and Radicalization in the Digital Era. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.Google Scholar
Manjoo, F. (2017) ‘A Hunt for Ways to Combat Online Radicalization’. New York Times, August 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/technology/a-hunt-for-ways-to-disrupt-the-work-of-online-radicalization.html.Google Scholar
McCombs, Maxwell. (2000) ‘The Agenda-Setting Role of the Mass Media in the Shaping of Public Opinion’. Unpublished manuscript. https://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_pdf/mccombs01.pdf.Google Scholar
Miller, Boaz, and Record, Isaac. (2013) ‘Justified Belief in a Digital Age: On the Epistemic Implications of Secret Internet Technologies’. Episteme, 10, 117–134.Google Scholar
Miller, Boaz, and Record, Isaac. (2016) ‘Responsible Epistemic Technologies: A Social-Epistemological Analysis of Autocompleted Web Search’. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444816644805.Google Scholar
Ndili, Alex. (2016) ‘The Role Of Community Policing In The Prevention Of Youth Radicalization in the Eastleigh Area of Nairobi County’. University of Nairobi. http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/11295/100166.Google Scholar
Neumann, Peter R. (2013) ‘Options and Strategies for Countering Online Radicalization in the United States’. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 36, 431–59.Google Scholar
Newton, C. (2017) ‘How YouTube Perfected the Feed’. The Verge, August 30. https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/30/16222850/youtube-google-brain-algorithm-video-recommendation-personalized-feed.Google Scholar
Omotoyinbo, Femi Richard. (2014) ‘Online Radicalization: The Net or the Netizen?’ Socialnės Technologijos, 1, 51–61.Google Scholar
Palermos, S. O. (2016) ‘The Dynamics of Group Cognition’. Minds and Machines, 26, 409–40.Google Scholar
Pariser, Eli. (2011) The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Peterson, J. (2018) 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Pettit, P. (2015) The Robust Demands of the Good: Ethics with Attachment, Virtue, and Respect. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pilkington, Ed, and Roberts, Dan. (2016) ‘FBI and Obama Confirm Omar Mateen Was Radicalized on the Internet’. The Guardian, June 14. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/13/pulse-nightclub-attack-shooter-radicalized-internet-orlando.Google Scholar
Precht, Tomas. (2007) ‘Home Grown Terrorism and Islamist Radicalisation in Europe: From Conversion to Terrorism’. http://www.justitsministeriet.dk/sites/default/files/media/Arbejdsomraader/Forskning/Forskningspuljen/2011/2007/Home_grown_terrorism_and_Islamist_radicalisation_in_Europe_-_an_assessment_of_influencing_factors__2_.pdf.Google Scholar
Ritter, F. E., Baxter, G. D., and Churchill, E. F.. (2014) ‘User-centered Systems Design: A Brief History. In Foundations for Designing User-centered Systems (London: Springer), 33–54.Google Scholar
Roberts, Robert, and Wood, Jay. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., and Preece, J.. (2012) Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Silber, Mitchell D., and Bhatt, Arvin. (2007) ‘Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat’. https://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/files/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf.Google Scholar
Strohminger, Nina, and Nichols, Shaun. (2014) ‘The Essential Moral Self’. Cognition, 131, 159–71.Google Scholar
Su., S. (2017). ‘New Test with Related Articles’. Facebook Newsroom, April 25. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/04/news-feed-fyi-new-test-with-related-articles/.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. (2011) Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. (2015) ‘The Ethics of Nudging’. Yale Journal on Regulation, 32(2), 413–15.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. (2017) Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tanesini, A. (2016) ‘Teaching Virtue: Changing Attitudes’. Logos & Episteme, 7, 503–27.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., and Sunstein, Cass R.. (2003a) ‘Libertarian Paternalism is not an Oxymoron’. The University of Chicago Law Review, 70, 1159–1202.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard, and Sunstein, Cass. (2003b) ‘Libertarian Paternalism’. The American Economic Review, 93, 175–79.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., and Benartzi, Shlomo. (2004) ‘Save More Tomorrow: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving’. Journal of Political Economy, 112, S164–S187.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., and Sunstein, Cass R.. (2008) Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., Sunstein, Cass R., and Balz, John P.. (2014) ‘Choice Architecture’. In Shafir, Eldar (ed.), The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 428–39.Google Scholar
Troumbley, Rex. (2015) ‘Coercive Cyberspaces and Governing Internet Futures’. In Winter, Jenifer and Ono, Ryota (eds.), The Future Internet: Alternative Visions (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 17–40.Google Scholar
Tufekci, Zeynep. (2018) ‘YouTube, the Great Radicalizer’. New York Times, March 10. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html.Google Scholar
Vallor, Shannon. (2016) Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Van Hoboken, J. V. J. (2012) Search Engine Freedom: On the Implications of the Right to Freedom of Expression for the Legal Governance of Search Engines. Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
Vinokur, Amiram, and Burnstein, Eugene. (1978) ‘Depolarization of Attitudes in Groups.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 872.Google Scholar
Von Behr, Ines, Reding, Anaïs, Edwards, Charlie, and Gribbon, Luke. (2013) ‘Radicalisation in the Digital Era: The Use of the Internet in 15 Cases of Terrorism and Extremism’. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=266610.Google Scholar
Wegner, D. M. (1987) ‘Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind’. In Mullen, Brian and Goethals, George R (eds.), Theories of Group behavior (New York: Springer), 185–208.Google Scholar
Wegner, D. M., Erber, R., and Raymond, P.. (1991) ‘Transactive Memory in Close Relationships’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 923.Google Scholar
Weimann, Gabriel. (2012) ‘Lone Wolves in Cyberspace’. Journal of Terrorism Research, 3. doi:10.15664/jtr.405.Google Scholar
White, Mark. (2013) The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Winner, Langdon. (1986) The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wong, David. (2006) Natural Moralities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. (2017) Exemplarist Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar