The Effects of Online Information Operations in Conflict Zones
How do online influence campaigns shape audience behavior during armed conflict? This study examines the Taliban's 2021 offensive in Afghanistan to explore how coordinated military and digital strategies influence social media users' activity. Combining data on territorial control, records of Taliban violence, and Twitter activity, we show that the Taliban's online propaganda strategically mirrored its ground campaign, with messaging intensifying in regions just before their capture. Using matching methods and an instrumental variables approach leveraging internet disruptions, we find that exposure to Taliban propaganda reduced resistance-oriented posts and increased compliance-oriented content, often preceding the group's physical control of these areas. These findings highlight the role of digital influence campaigns in shaping online discourse during conflict, offering new insights on how combatants can use social media to amplify their reach and influence.
Tamar Mitts is an Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs and a member of the Data Science Institute and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research addresses emerging challenges at the intersection of technology and conflict.
Professor Mitts’s work focuses on several broad questions: (a) What role does social media play during conflict and civil war? (b) How do violent and nonviolent movements use the internet to advance their cause? and (c) In what ways can media be manipulated to shape public opinion? Mitts’s research draws on innovative data collection techniques and creative research designs that leverage the wealth of information available in digital media platforms. Her articles have been published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, International Organization, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives, among other outlets. Her research has been cited in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Fortune Magazine, Vox, War on the Rocks, and Foreign Policy.
Mitts' new book, Safe Havens for Hate: The Challenge of Moderating Online Extremism (Princeton University Press), explains why militant and hate organizations flourish online despite global efforts to clamp down on harmful content on social media platforms.
Mitts holds an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and a B.A. in politics from New York University.