Investigating Monetization of Extremists Online with the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism
by Yiqing Hua
Many web services and platforms allow users to host events, sell merchandise, or organize fundraisers. Although these services help fund the content we enjoy, they are also exploited by adversarial actors. In particular, these platforms may be abused by extremists to solicit donations or generate revenues by promoting and selling harmful content. Over the summer, supported by the PiTech fellowship, I worked with the Center on Extremism within the Anti-Defamation League to better understand how extremists abuse these platforms and services, and to determine if moderation efforts have put a dent in such activities.
To lead this investigation, I’ve followed a data-driven approach. The Center on Extremism has collected valuable data on extremists' activities online. In particular, the group has curated a list of nearly 500 Telegram channels focused on different extremist agendas, including white supremacy, neo-Nazi, alt-right, and others. Using this list, I extracted the URLs that were posted in these channels as of June, 2021. Furthermore, I extracted crypto-currency addresses. Due to the fact that transactions are not regulated, they are popular among adversarial actors. I then cross-searched this data with a list of event organizing, retail, fundraising, and subscription services for content creation that was collected from a previous study. The resulting list was further filtered by manual inspection.
The results show that the monetization efforts used by extremists have mixed success. For example, among all Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin addresses posted in these channels, there are only 39 addresses that have received any money, and are linked to a person or organization with extremist affiliation. The success of these addresses vary. The most successful cryptocurrency address found in the chat logs belongs to Andrew Anglin, or the Daily Stormer. His wallet is estimated at over $70,000 (the estimate may vary depending on the esimation service used).
Although many platforms and services are being used by extremist groups to organize events, sell merchandise or raise money, some of them take stricter counteractions than others. For example, links to PayPal accounts in these groups are often taken down by the company. In fact, PayPal has announced that it will partner with ADL to fight extremism and protect marginalized communities. In contrast, our analysis reveals that products sold on Amazon promote misleading information or hateful content for profit, and these listings aren't taken down in a timely manner.
Web platforms and services can be easily abused by extremists. Luckily, many of them have taken counter measures against such activities, however there are a few exceptions. Nevertheless, without attentive moderation, online services that provide convenience to the general public will continue serving malicious actors, as well. It was my honor to work with the experts in the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League. It was a great experience applying data science to assist the work of domain experts.