van der Vegt, I;
Kleinberg, B;
Gill, P;
(2023)
Proceed with caution: on the use of computational linguistics in threat assessment.
Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism
10.1080/18335330.2023.2165137.
(In press).
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Abstract
Large-scale linguistic analyses are increasingly applied to the study of extremism, terrorism, and other threats of violence. At the same time, practitioners working in the field of counterterrorism and security are confronted with large-scale linguistic data, and may benefit from computational methods. This article highlights the challenges and opportunities associated with applying computational linguistics in the domain of threat assessment. Four current issues are identified, namely (1) the data problem, (2) the utopia of predicting violence, (3) the base rate fallacy, and (4) the danger of closed-sourced tools. These challenges are translated into a checklist of questions that should be asked by policymakers and practitioners who (intend to) make use of tools that leverage computational linguistics for threat assessment. The ‘VISOR-P’ checklist can be used to evaluate such tools through their Validity, Indicators, Scientific Quality, Openness, Relevance and Performance. Finally, some suggestions are outlined for the furtherance of the computational linguistic threat assessment field.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Proceed with caution: on the use of computational linguistics in threat assessment |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/18335330.2023.2165137 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/18335330.2023.2165137 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
| Keywords: | threat assessment; violence; extremism; computational linguistics |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Security and Crime Science |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10164646 |
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