Identifying opportunities for expert-mediated triangulation in monitoring wildlife trade on social media
© 2021 Society for Conservation Biology.
| Publié dans: | Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. - 1989. - 36(2022), 2 vom: 01. Apr., Seite e13858 |
|---|---|
| Auteur principal: | |
| Autres auteurs: | , , |
| Format: | Article en ligne |
| Langue: | English |
| Publié: |
2022
|
| Accès à la collection: | Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology |
| Sujets: | Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't bird trade comercio de aves comercio de mascotas comercio en línea comercio internacional de fauna exotic pets international wildlife trade mascotas exóticas plus... |
| Résumé: | © 2021 Society for Conservation Biology. Wildlife trade has rapidly expanded on social media platforms in recent years, offering an easy means for traders to access international markets. Investigating this trade activity poses a complex challenge to researchers seeking to understand online trade and moderators seeking to disrupt illicit and harmful activity. Current survey methods frequently rely on text-based searches and focus on posts in which the advertisement is explicit. However, such approaches risk overlooking a growing volume of relevant content, particularly outside social media groups. We used posts from pages promoting West African birds for trade as a case study to explore the availability of information for making inferences about trade activity on social media, specifically information indicating that trade activity was occurring or that could be used to infer trade routes. We recorded 400 posts from 12 pages that we inferred either promoted or facilitated wildlife trade, of which 19.7% were explicit advertisements and 23.8% contained taxa-related terms. In the remaining 341 posts, profile information was the most common indicator of trade activity, but a variety of indicators (e.g., images of birds in trade and trade enquiries) were identified across imagery, text, and comments. We identified multiple types of geographical information that could help infer trade routes and thus the likely legality of trade, although most were relatively rare and sometimes contradictory. Our findings suggest that triangulating multiple types of information from within, across, and beyond posts is vital for effectively identifying and interpreting wildlife trade content on social media. Therefore, were commend that expert-mediated triangulation should be integrated in and used alongside automated detection systems and moderating practices of social media companies |
|---|---|
| Description: | Date Completed 18.04.2022 Date Revised 17.05.2022 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1523-1739 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/cobi.13858 |