@p There was no more to the meme, but the meme had enough info to find the following. For those reading along at home be careful about opening PDFs, last I checked they could still contain tracking pixels, only read with internet off or with a nice stronk VPN.

One twist is that the report is 11 months old, but they chose to resurrect it just before Torba's meme ban. My guess is they have a whole quiver of these bullshit reports and studies to signal boost in series to justify what's coming. Now, the data and links.

This is the article that revived this stale study for use as weapon:

polcomm.northwestern.edu/ccpp-report-highlights-the-danger-from-violent-memes-in-2024-u-s-election/

CCPP Report Highlights the Danger from Violent Memes in 2024 U.S. Election

Posted February 23, 2024 by Ani Feinberg

Memes have become a critical communication tool for partisan and extremist groups. CCPP scholars took a deep dive into the content of memes on alternative (or fringe) platforms, and what they found is just as concerning as it is fascinating. There is no doubt that 2024 will be saturated with online political content, but some of the most dangerous content should be expected to come in “meme” form.

Sponsored by a grant from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), a CCPP team employed state-of-the-art deep learning image and visual rhetorical analysis to analyze memes posted on far-right platform Parler. Detailed in the CCPP Report, the team categorized memes into themes of gender, race, partisanship and violence. Researchers then measured the transmission rates of memes associated with each theme, finding, among many other patterns, that violent memes are on the rise. It was also noted that memes with high engagement levels were often branded by a group emblem or logo, increasing their credibility within public discourse.

Under the guise of an unassuming image or inside joke, memes tend to hide their political intent and are more able to escape algorithmic content moderation or filtering. However, the report highlights how moderating memes is critically important for limiting online content that promotes political violence. The methodology and findings of the report provide a working model for meme content filtering that can help platforms identify and filter memes with extremist content.

That article links to this:

kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-swords-classi%EF%AC%81cation-and-di%EF%AC%80usion-o

There you find a direct link to the PDF:

kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/202622942/GNET_33_Meme_Classification_on_Partisan_Platform_web.pdf

A Picture is Worth a Thousand (S)words: Classification and Diffusion of Memes on a Partisan Media Platform

Ayse D. Lokmanoglu, Mowafak Allaham, Rod Abhari, Chloe Mortenson , Esteban Villa-Turek, GNET (Global Network on Extremism & Technology)

Original language
English
Publisher
Global Network on Extremism and Technology
Number of pages
48
Publication status
Published - 29 Mar 2023