When such conditions are present, then, we would expect social media to have an amplifying effect on conventional conflict dynamics. In situations of security-related anxiety, rumors – especially if they conform to pre-existing worldviews and emotionally relevant narratives, and especially if the audiences are repeatedly exposed to them – can perpetuate unfounded threat claims, amplify in-group/out-group tensions, and motivate rational actors to engage and justify collective violence in the name of self-defense.107 Techniques and tactics Digitally transmitted communication amplifies conflict dynamics through the following extra-factual sources of information108: 1) Rumor: Unverified information that is transmitted from one person to others. Rumors can be true, false or a mixture. At their core, mis- and dis-information are rumors.109 2) Hate speech: Any form of expression (speech, text, images) that “demeans or attacks a person or people as members of a group with shared characteristics such as race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.”110 3) Dangerous speech: Speech that has a special capacity to catalyze or amplify violence by one group against another.111 While some scholars claim that rumors “are nearly universal before the outbreak of riots and other forms of political violence,” and might even be “an independently sufficient cause of ethnic conflict,” others report weaker links between incidents of offline violence and online hate speech,112 or frame the relationship between exposure to digital mis- and dis-information and violence as mutually-constituted and multidirectional.113 Nevertheless, we can point to a range of factors, conditions, and drivers that might predispose particular contexts to the negative effects of virulent and hateful digital speech. Susan Benesch’s (2014) Dangerous Speech Guidelines114 include a range of contextual factors and series of hallmarks that collectively estimate 107 Greenhill and Oppenheim, 2-3; Benesch, 2014 3, 21; Padalino, 9. 108 According to Greenhill and Oppenheim, extra-factual sources of information are (a) unverified at the time of transmission, (b) serve as a source of actionable knowledge, (c) intended to influence recipients’ attitudes or behavior, (d) are emotionally resonant, and (e) are framed in ways that fit pre-existing societal narratives. See Kelly Greenhill and Ben Oppenheim, “Rumor Has It: The Adoption of Unverified Information in Conflict Zones,” in International Studies Quarterly (2017), 2. 109 See John Bugge, “Rumour Has It: A Practice Guide to Working with Rumours:” (Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC): 2017), 8; and Greenhill and Oppenheim, 2. Importantly, a rumor can also take on multiple forms over time: “For example, a human trafficker can spread a rumor amongst refugees … with the intent to deceive (disinformation), and a refugee can then pass this rumor to his friends and family not intending to deceive them (misinformation).”(Bugge, 8). 110 See Robert Faris et al., “Understanding Harmful Speech Online” Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society (2016), 5-6. See also Kagonya Awori and Susan Benesch, “Umati: Kenyan Online Discourse to Catalyze and Counter Violence” (Conference Paper: IFIP 2013), 470. 111 Awori, 470; Theo Dolan et al, “Youth and Radicalization in Mombasa, Kenya: A Lexicon of Violent Extremist Language on Social Media” (PeaceTech: 2018), 6. This kind of speech is predicated upon the risk of violence (e.g. instilling fear by warning of impending threats, or by making an incitement to violence). 112 See Dolan et al, 4. 113 In other words, that rumors, disinformation, hateful speech (etc) are both the outcomes and drivers of polarization, radicalization, and violent behavior. Of course, many scholars point to the need for holistic, multivariate model to explain complex social behavior. 114 Benesch, 2014, 7-8. MERCY CORPS The Weaponization of Social Media: How social media can spark violence and what can be done about it 48