Relationship Between Social Media and Acts of Domestic Terrorism and Extremism

After 9/11, domestic terrorism began to evolve in the United States and technological advances and the usage of social media (SM) increased exponentially. During the same era, technological advancement intensified and SM became one primary method of communication between extremists. SM has infiltrated into multiple segments of society, and became a method of transference of ideology, to the population of the United States. Domestic violent extremism (DVE) groups used SM to indoctrinate, train, and recruit individuals throughout the United States. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the relationship between the increased usage of SM and the rise of domestic terrorism and DVE. The exploratory framework examined if there is a relationship between SM and acts of DVE in the United States. Variables examined for their relationship to the use of SM included geography, methods and purposes of communication, weapons, targets, and the characteristics of those responsible for the violence. The secondary data used in the research were captured from the University of Maryland Global Terrorism Database and from open-source new media and governments sites. The data resulted in 298 cases of acts of violence (2002-2023) across the United States for analysis. Using binomial logistic regression and chi-square tests, the use of SM was found to have a relationship with the age of attacker, the type of weapons used, and the number of fatalities in an attack. A relationship between SM use and other variables was not detected. The findings advance our understanding of SM’s potential role in the motivations, methods, and affects of DVE acts in the United States.