ISIS Twitter Census and Data Science

Middle East Week

Jonathon Morgan comes on the show to talk about using data science to analyze and understand issues in the Middle East. Jonathon is the co-founder of CrisisNET, and recently co-authored the ISIS Twitter Census with J.M. Berger.

Topics:

• The data collection and verification involved in making the ISIS Twitter Census
• Dealing with multiple languages in their data set
• Information that can be learned from a large data set of ISIS supporters
• Potential to use data like this to study radicalization and improve countering violent extremism strategies
• Why journalists, scholars, and others should try using data science tools and techniques
• How to start using data science, even if you have no experience
• Limitations of data science and “big data”
• How to ask the right questions to make your data more valuable
• How subject matter experts can better work with data scientists

Links:

• The ISIS Twitter Census: Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter - paper Jonathon co-authored with J.M. Berger for the Brookings Institution
• CrisisNET - an Ushahidi initiative to build a platform for the world’s crisis data, giving journalists, data scientists, developers, and other makers fast, easy access to critical government, business, humanitarian, and crowdsourced information.
• Partially Derivative - Entertaining and informative data science podcast Jonathon co-hosts with Chris Albon
• Resources — Partially Derivative - Great place to find out more about getting started with data science
• Jonathon Morgan (@jonathonmorgan) on Twitter
• Email Jonathon to find out more about organizations that link data scientists with subject matter experts
• Karl Morand (@KarlMorand) on Twitter

Thanks to Middle East Week patrons Alex Dunne and Michael Jorgensen! You can support the podcast by making a small donation on Patreon!