Talk:Stochastic terrorism

I wanted to make a significant change that may go against an accepted concept
I would like to make a significant change which may be against an accepted idea so I thought it should be put up for discussion. This section appears to be a misinterpretation of the meaning of an article. The article by Gordon Woo is in my not humble opinion poorly written and edited. I am not providing a link to the article because I am using an unofficial copy. Anyway you know how to find it.

Terminology
The term was initially used to suggest that a quantifiable relationship may exist between seemingly random acts of terror and their intended goal of "perpetuating a reign of fear" via a manipulation of mass media and its capacity for "instant global news communication". For example, careful timing and placement of just a few moderately explosive devices could have the same intended effect as numerous random attacks or the use of more powerful explosives if they were shrewdly devised to elicit the maximum response from media organizations. It was theorized by Gordon Woo in a 2002 paper that "the absolute number of attacks within a year, i.e. the rhythm of terror, might ultimately be determined as much by publicity goals and the political anniversary calendar as by the size of the terrorist ranks".

I want to replace it with this: (which is a truer interpretation of what was said in the article. Note the heading change also).

Academic background
This article does not read like the term is used by scientists. It might be helpful to get an insight into who developped it and what the scientific background of this scholar is. It should be mentionned in the introduction and etymology section. 2A02:8109:AA38:A100:91FC:FC57:1A15:405 (talk) 03:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Sources?
Global trends point to increasing violent rhetoric and political violence, including more evidence of stochastic terrorism. The article implies that this is an established concept and that there's evidence supporting its existence and growth. This is an extraordinary claim. What are the sources supporting this? MarioGom (talk) 09:41, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Looking back through the article I could not find supporting sources either at first glance so I removed the sentence from the lede and improved another sentence to not imply that the term has been growing in usage (or there has been more stochastic terrorism) since that source does not make that claim. Will check some of the newer sources to see if I can find discussion of trends. Superb Owl (talk) 20:14, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Original research and Conflict of Interest editing by @Bartman82
I removed from the article and am placing here most of the original research distinguishing between 'technical' and 'populist' definitions of the term added by @Bartman82 who largely tagged these as 'minor edits':

An example of technical application is evaluating changes in online rhetoric in order to assess the generalized potential threat against law enforcement or military personnel without laying blame or taking action against the sources for the threat.

The major change of the populist usage from the technical usage is direct attribution of fault to public figures for a given violent event despite a lack of contact with the person committing the violence.

The populist term assigns responsibility, such as the actor Wil Wheaton responding to the 2022 Buffalo, NY shooting with, "Tucker Carlson shares responsibility for the mass murder in Buffalo yesterday." This assessment was made the day after the shooting, prior to any investigation issuing a report or other finding of fact.

In this populist definition, the public accusations that a person is a terrorist or murderer is "targeting language" and can cause resulting actions, ranging from angry protestors threatening Tucker Carlson at his home to the murder of abortion provider George Tiller who had been publicly called a "baby killer."

While both usages are found in academic work, the populist usage is usually by pundits and politicians to assign fault for violent events to opposition figures while the technical use is usually in the risk industry as well as counterterrorism circles. The overlap between the technical use and populist use has been of increasing interest, particularly in light of potential legal considerations and the analysis of the role of social media.

Superb Owl (talk) 20:11, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * also removed this sentence that appears to be synthesis since the CNN source or the text don't mention Stochastic Terrorism
 * The Congressional baseball shooting in 2017 was a "lone wolf" mass shooting that targeted members of Congress, injuring six people. The shooter was an avid consumer of political social media and repeated pundit talking points in his own posts. Superb Owl (talk) 20:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Also removed this sentence which may be original research and have been added by an editor that may have a conflict of interest:
 * Bart Kemper points to the use of machine learning to analyze social media for threatening speech and Artificial Intelligence to predict trends based on probability, but also points to the challenges in establishing legitimate ethical or legal causation.   Superb Owl (talk) 22:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Stochastic harm occurs when the cause (hazard) and its effect (harm) are indirectly linked by a probabilistic relationship. The idea of stochastic harm was first published in 1978, it originally applied to the unintended negative effects of medical procedures using ionizing radiation, such as radiation therapy for cancer when the treatment causes another type of cancer. The term "stochastic harm" has also been generalized to describe harm related to environmental problems such as climate change  and some types of disinformation.  Superb Owl (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Woo uses Markov chain and computational complexity theory to describe the corelation between media reports of violent speech and a general increase in terrorist violence as part of formal risk assessment regarding terrorism attacks. A key element of Woo's concept is that the task of quantifying "terrorism risk" should not be confused with predicting the next "terrorist attack". Just as no seismologist is capable of predicting the time, place and magnitude of the next major earthquake in California, it is possible for a seismic risk analyst to evaluate the annual exceedance probability of loss to a California property portfolio. Similarly, stochastic terrorism analysis correlates a general risk in terrorist activity to the amount of relevant violent speech but cannot predict a specific event. The intent is to assess the risk over time. A cluster of like-minded individuals, who may never have actually met, could collectively contrive a terrorist act using internet chat-rooms. Being spontaneously generated by inspirational rhetoric, such a group would be almost impossible to infiltrate. A lone attacker like Richard Reid, who carried out the 2001 "shoe bombing" attempt, shows the terrorism risk can be a single person inspired to act. Superb Owl (talk) 23:19, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This is opposed to conventional criminal activity similar to the 2009 Fort Hood shooting where a terrorist was radicalized through direct conversations with individuals. The use of "stochastic" factors and "stochastic terrorism" is still used amongst risk assessment professionals and anti-terrorism activities. Superb Owl (talk) 23:22, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

=References=