Social Cybersecurity in Conflict Zones: Quantitative Analysis of Narrative Manipulation on X
摘要
During the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, social media users were heavily involved in related discussions. These tweets and topics significantly influenced netizens’ perceptions of both sides of the conflict and even affected cybersecurity. To analyze the impact of tweets and topics, we used the BEND Analytical Framework to examine potential narrative manipulations. In the study, we crawled all related tweets on X from October 6 to November 29, 2023, and clustered several topics, and analyzed the possible narrative manipulations involved in each tweet of the top ten topics. The results showed that these topics were either neutral or pro-Israeli, and positive narrative manipulations were mainly used within these topics. Different combinations of narrative manipulation methods have varying impacts on topic interaction levels. Strategies that combined interpretation with Engage/Enhance both helped increase the interaction volume of tweets. Compared to using the Engage maneuver alone, the Enhance maneuver is more effective in boosting interaction volume.