Shifting Patterns of Extremist Discourse on Facebook: Analyzing Trends and Developments During the Israel-Hamas Conflict

2026-05-02

AI Summary

This study investigates the discursive dynamics of three types of extreme-position groups on Facebook—pro-Israel, pro-Hamas, and those opposing both sides—during the Israel–Hamas conflict from July 2023 to June 2024, and their relationship to five pivotal events. Integrating social media data analysis, natural language processing, and topic modeling, the research systematically tracks and comparatively analyzes the evolution of discursive strategies among adversarial groups across different phases of the conflict. Findings reveal that in the early phase, activity surged in one-sided hostile groups while declining among bilateral opposition groups; this trend reversed in later stages. All groups exhibited significantly heightened negative sentiment and a phased shift in discourse from political to religious themes, uncovering a dynamic reversal mechanism in extremist rhetoric shaped by the evolving military situation.

Abstract

This short paper explores trends in extremist Facebook data from July 2023 to June 2024. We examined engagement, sentiment, and topics within Facebook groups categorized as anti-Israel/Semitic, anti-Palestine/Muslim, and anti-both, mapping these trends against five major events related to the recent Israel-Hamas conflict. Our findings support the hypothesis that shifts in trends correspond with these key events, showing varying patterns across different group categories. We observed decreased activity proportion in anti-both groups and increased activity proportion in the two one-sided hate groups at the conflict's onset. This pattern reversed after the Israeli troop withdrawal from Khan Yunis, Gaza. During the conflict, negative content proportion surged, and neutral content proportion fell in all the three group categories. Anti-Palestine/Muslim groups' discourses shifted from religious to social media activism and political/protest around the time the war began, while anti-Israel/Semitic groups moved from political/protest to religious topics a couple of weeks before the war.

Problem

• extremist discourse
• Facebook
• Israel-Hamas conflict
• online hate groups
• sentiment analysis

Innovation

• extremist discourse
• social media analysis
• sentiment dynamics
• topic shift
• Israel-Hamas conflict