Elvira Maria Restrepo | University of Miami (original) (raw)

Papers by Elvira Maria Restrepo

COYUNTURA ECONÓMICA, Dec 1, 2005

arXiv: Physics and Society, 2017

We present a many-body theory that explains and reproduces recent observations of population pola... more We present a many-body theory that explains and reproduces recent observations of population polarization dynamics, is supported by controlled human experiments, and addresses the controversy surrounding the Internet's impact. It predicts that whether and how a population becomes polarized is dictated by the nature of the underlying competition, rather than the validity of the information that individuals receive or their online bubbles. Building on this framework, we show that next-generation social media algorithms aimed at pulling people together, will instead likely lead to an explosive percolation process that generates new pockets of extremes.

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 2018

Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This arti... more Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This article proposes, and presents results from, an online technology platform and a methodology, which can help depolarize sectors of society, with the specific application to the current divisive post-war landscape within Colombia. The platform is based on deliberative democracy, and is designed to enable citizens to discuss issues in small groups. It exploits Colombia’s high online connectivity to provide a safe, anonymous environment for expressing opinions related to both the government and the guerrillas. Preliminary findings suggest that the platform could aid bridge building among citizens, and it could be easily replicated in other situations globally. Given the polarization that seems to arise in technologically-enabled societies as a result of social media “bubbles,” the broader need for such a platform in local, regional, and national debates is particularly pressing.

Physical review letters, Jan 27, 2018

We introduce a generalized form of gelation theory that incorporates individual heterogeneity and... more We introduce a generalized form of gelation theory that incorporates individual heterogeneity and show that it can explain the asynchronous, sudden appearance and growth of online extremist groups supporting ISIS (so-called Islamic State) that emerged globally post-2014. The theory predicts how heterogeneity impacts their onset times and growth profiles and suggests that online extremist groups present a broad distribution of heterogeneity-dependent aggregation mechanisms centered around homophily. The good agreement between the theory and empirical data suggests that existing strategies aiming to defeat online extremism under the assumption that it is driven by a few "bad apples" are misguided. More generally, this generalized theory should apply to a range of real-world systems featuring aggregation among heterogeneous objects.

Science, 2016

Tackling the advance of online threats Online support for adversarial groups such as Islamic Stat... more Tackling the advance of online threats Online support for adversarial groups such as Islamic State (ISIS) can turn local into global threats and attract new recruits and funding. Johnson et al. analyzed data collected on ISIS-related websites involving 108,086 individual followers between 1 January 1 and 31 August 2015. They developed a statistical model aimed at identifying behavioral patterns among online supporters of ISIS and used this information to predict the onset of major violent events. Sudden escalation in the number of ISIS-supporting ad hoc web groups (“aggregates”) preceded the onset of violence in a way that would not have been detected by looking at social media references to ISIS alone. The model suggests how the development and evolution of such aggregates can be blocked. Science , this issue p. 1459

Science advances, Jun 1, 2016

A popular stereotype is that women will play more minor roles than men as environments become mor... more A popular stereotype is that women will play more minor roles than men as environments become more dangerous and aggressive. Our analysis of new longitudinal data sets from offline and online operational networks [for example, ISIS (Islamic State)] shows that although men dominate numerically, women emerge with superior network connectivity that can benefit the underlying system's robustness and survival. Our observations suggest new female-centric approaches that could be used to affect such networks. They also raise questions about how individual contributions in high-pressure systems are evaluated.

Palgrave Communications, 2016

In the current high-profile conflict within Colombia, women account for the majority of civilian ... more In the current high-profile conflict within Colombia, women account for the majority of civilian victims. It has been argued that the inclusion of women in peace-building processes may help increase the scope and sustainability of the subsequently achieved peace. However, most women victims of conflict (WVCs) achieve public visibility simply because of their suffering, not because of their potential as sources, initiators and agents of peace. In contrast, this article argues that WVCs represent a hitherto uncharted piece of the peace-building puzzle. In particular, this study explores the ways in which some WVCs are overcoming their own victimhood and emerging as leaders in peace-building, despite the significant personal risks associated with the ongoing violence: who better to help heal and empower victims and reconcile society than those who have suffered trauma themselvesand risen above it? The article draws its primary evidence from extensive personal interviews, ethnographic work and data on women victims in Colombia. Against all odds, these unsung WVC leaders have proven to be powerful agents of change: capable of healing, empowering and even reconciling broader society. This article is published as part of a thematic collection on multi-and interdisciplinary perspectives on gender studies.

European Journal of Applied Mathematics, 2015

We discuss the emergence of common mathematical patterns governing the timing and severity of ins... more We discuss the emergence of common mathematical patterns governing the timing and severity of insurgent and terrorist attacks, across geographic scales and including cyberspace. We present mathematical models that provide a generative explanation of these patterns. Despite wide variations in the underlying settings and circumstances, the ubiquity of these patterns suggests there is a common way in which groups of humans fight each other. Our empirical findings follow from the analysis of myriad state-of-the-art datasets with resolution at the level of individual attacks, while our mathematical modelling involves numerical and analytical solutions of fission–fusion dynamics together with progress curve analysis.

Social Phenomena, 2015

We discuss the nature and origin of patterns emerging in the timing and severity of violent event... more We discuss the nature and origin of patterns emerging in the timing and severity of violent events within human conflicts and global terrorism. The underlying data are drawn from across geographical scales from municipalities up to entire continents, with great diversity in terms of terrain, underlying cause, socioeconomic and political setting, cultural and technological background. The data sources are equally diverse, being drawn from all available sources including non-government organizations, academia, and official government records. Despite these implicit heterogeneities and the seemingly chaotic nature of human violence, the patterns that we report are remarkably robust. We argue that this ubiquity of a particular pattern reflects a common way in which groups of humans fight each other, particularly in the asymmetric setting in which one weaker but ostensibly more adaptable opponent confronts a stronger but potentially more sluggish opponent. We propose a minimal generative model which reproduces these common statistical patterns while offering a physical explanation as to their cause. We also explain why our mechanistic approach, which is inspired by non-equilibrium statistical physics, fits naturally within the framework of recent ideas within the social science literature concerning analytical sociology, as well as setting our results in the wider context of real-world and cyber-based collective violence and illicit activity.

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2013

Calls are escalating for social media platforms to do more to mitigate extreme online communities... more Calls are escalating for social media platforms to do more to mitigate extreme online communities whose views can lead to real-world harms, e.g., mis/disinformation and distrust that increased Covid-19 fatalities, and now extend to monkeypox, unsafe baby formula alternatives, cancer, abortions, and climate change; white replacement that inspired the 2022 Buffalo shooter and will likely inspire others; anger that threatens elections, e.g., 2021 U.S. Capitol attack; notions of male supremacy that encourage abuse of women; anti-Semitism, anti-LGBQT hate and QAnon conspiracies. But should 'doing more' mean doing more of the same, or something different? If so, what? Here we start by showing why platforms doing more of the same will not solve the problem. Specifically, our analysis of nearly 100 million Facebook users entangled over vaccines and now Covid and beyond, shows that the extreme communities' ecology has a hidden resilience to Facebook's removal interventions; t...

Nature Scientific Reports, 2019

We quantify how and when extreme subpopulations emerge in a model society despite everyone having... more We quantify how and when extreme subpopulations emerge in a model society despite everyone having the same information and available resources-and show that counterintuitively these extremes will likely be enhanced over time by new social media algorithms designed to reduce division. We verify our analysis mathematically, and show it reproduces (a) the time-dependent behavior observed in controlled experiments on humans, (b) the findings of a recent study of online behavior by Facebook concerning the impact of 'soft' and 'hard' news, (c) the observed temporal emergence of extremes in U.S. House of Representatives voting, and (d) the real-time emergence of a division in national opinion during the ongoing peace process in colombia. We uncover a novel societal tipping point which is a 'ghost' of a nearby saddle-node bifurcation from dynamical systems theory, and which provides a novel policy opportunity for preventing extremes from emerging. A fascinating debate has opened up about the impact on a society of information and news, both true and false; its sudden global availability as a result of the Internet; and its deepening penetration via online social media (e.g. Facebook) 1-9. King et al. 7,8 elucidated the power of general media information in terms of activating people to express themselves, while Boxell et al's 1 empirical study suggests that current divisions are not specifically due to the Internet or social media. Meanwhile Stanley and co-workers had earlier found empirical evidence for 'crowd' formation in human populations responding to information broadcast during an economic competition 10. The impacts of division within a society are widespread, affecting the stories and narratives that individuals choose to share 3,4 , their political affiliations and how they vote 5,11 , and even how society views scientific findings, e.g. Darwinian evolution versus intelligent design, and climate change 12. On issues for which there is no counter-evidence, a surprisingly large number of people may still take an 'anti-crowd' viewpoint, e.g. the many people who believe the world is flat and attended the Flat Earth International Conference 13. Even within the community of professional scientists, there is a non-zero 'anti-crowd' that are skeptical about global warming 14. This same challenge of understanding the dynamics of division and hence extremes (as in Fig. 1), and the impact of external information, is important in many disciplines-from physical and chemical systems 15 to social, economic, ecological and political domains 4,16-31. Even if a community appears relatively stable when observed from the outside, there can be a complex underlying ecology of beliefs and opinions bubbling just below the surface , driven by feedbacks based on past history and changes in relationships. Just as a liquid may then suddenly boil over without any apparent warning, extremes can appear from out of nowhere. Foundational works in economics by Arthur 21 , in physics by Halpin-Healy 22,23 , in ecology by Gavrilets 24 , in social science by Epstein, Axtell 25 and Hedstrom 26 , in political science by Lazar 4,18,19 , and in psychology by Forsyth and Lewin 27,28 and others 29-31 , suggest that addressing this challenge will therefore require the development of minimal, generative theories of the population's out-of-equilibrium dynamics, even though any such theory will by necessity be a cartoon version of the real-world system 4,18,21-23,29-36 .

Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This arti... more Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This article proposes, and presents results from, an online technology platform and a methodology , which can help depolarize sectors of society, with the specific application to the current divisive postwar landscape within Colombia. The platform is based on deliber-ative democracy, and is designed to enable citizens to discuss issues in small groups. It exploits Colombia's high online connectivity to provide a safe, anonymous environment for expressing opinions related to both the government and the guerrillas. Preliminary findings suggest that the platform could aid bridge building among citizens, and it could be easily replicated in other situations globally. Given the polarization that seems to arise in technologically-enabled societies as a result of social media " bubbles, " the broader need for such a platform in local, regional, and national debates is particularly pressing. Keywords citizen deliberation – Colombia – divided societies – innovative deliberation – new technology – online deliberation – polarization

COYUNTURA ECONÓMICA, Dec 1, 2005

arXiv: Physics and Society, 2017

We present a many-body theory that explains and reproduces recent observations of population pola... more We present a many-body theory that explains and reproduces recent observations of population polarization dynamics, is supported by controlled human experiments, and addresses the controversy surrounding the Internet's impact. It predicts that whether and how a population becomes polarized is dictated by the nature of the underlying competition, rather than the validity of the information that individuals receive or their online bubbles. Building on this framework, we show that next-generation social media algorithms aimed at pulling people together, will instead likely lead to an explosive percolation process that generates new pockets of extremes.

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 2018

Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This arti... more Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This article proposes, and presents results from, an online technology platform and a methodology, which can help depolarize sectors of society, with the specific application to the current divisive post-war landscape within Colombia. The platform is based on deliberative democracy, and is designed to enable citizens to discuss issues in small groups. It exploits Colombia’s high online connectivity to provide a safe, anonymous environment for expressing opinions related to both the government and the guerrillas. Preliminary findings suggest that the platform could aid bridge building among citizens, and it could be easily replicated in other situations globally. Given the polarization that seems to arise in technologically-enabled societies as a result of social media “bubbles,” the broader need for such a platform in local, regional, and national debates is particularly pressing.

Physical review letters, Jan 27, 2018

We introduce a generalized form of gelation theory that incorporates individual heterogeneity and... more We introduce a generalized form of gelation theory that incorporates individual heterogeneity and show that it can explain the asynchronous, sudden appearance and growth of online extremist groups supporting ISIS (so-called Islamic State) that emerged globally post-2014. The theory predicts how heterogeneity impacts their onset times and growth profiles and suggests that online extremist groups present a broad distribution of heterogeneity-dependent aggregation mechanisms centered around homophily. The good agreement between the theory and empirical data suggests that existing strategies aiming to defeat online extremism under the assumption that it is driven by a few "bad apples" are misguided. More generally, this generalized theory should apply to a range of real-world systems featuring aggregation among heterogeneous objects.

Science, 2016

Tackling the advance of online threats Online support for adversarial groups such as Islamic Stat... more Tackling the advance of online threats Online support for adversarial groups such as Islamic State (ISIS) can turn local into global threats and attract new recruits and funding. Johnson et al. analyzed data collected on ISIS-related websites involving 108,086 individual followers between 1 January 1 and 31 August 2015. They developed a statistical model aimed at identifying behavioral patterns among online supporters of ISIS and used this information to predict the onset of major violent events. Sudden escalation in the number of ISIS-supporting ad hoc web groups (“aggregates”) preceded the onset of violence in a way that would not have been detected by looking at social media references to ISIS alone. The model suggests how the development and evolution of such aggregates can be blocked. Science , this issue p. 1459

Science advances, Jun 1, 2016

A popular stereotype is that women will play more minor roles than men as environments become mor... more A popular stereotype is that women will play more minor roles than men as environments become more dangerous and aggressive. Our analysis of new longitudinal data sets from offline and online operational networks [for example, ISIS (Islamic State)] shows that although men dominate numerically, women emerge with superior network connectivity that can benefit the underlying system's robustness and survival. Our observations suggest new female-centric approaches that could be used to affect such networks. They also raise questions about how individual contributions in high-pressure systems are evaluated.

Palgrave Communications, 2016

In the current high-profile conflict within Colombia, women account for the majority of civilian ... more In the current high-profile conflict within Colombia, women account for the majority of civilian victims. It has been argued that the inclusion of women in peace-building processes may help increase the scope and sustainability of the subsequently achieved peace. However, most women victims of conflict (WVCs) achieve public visibility simply because of their suffering, not because of their potential as sources, initiators and agents of peace. In contrast, this article argues that WVCs represent a hitherto uncharted piece of the peace-building puzzle. In particular, this study explores the ways in which some WVCs are overcoming their own victimhood and emerging as leaders in peace-building, despite the significant personal risks associated with the ongoing violence: who better to help heal and empower victims and reconcile society than those who have suffered trauma themselvesand risen above it? The article draws its primary evidence from extensive personal interviews, ethnographic work and data on women victims in Colombia. Against all odds, these unsung WVC leaders have proven to be powerful agents of change: capable of healing, empowering and even reconciling broader society. This article is published as part of a thematic collection on multi-and interdisciplinary perspectives on gender studies.

European Journal of Applied Mathematics, 2015

We discuss the emergence of common mathematical patterns governing the timing and severity of ins... more We discuss the emergence of common mathematical patterns governing the timing and severity of insurgent and terrorist attacks, across geographic scales and including cyberspace. We present mathematical models that provide a generative explanation of these patterns. Despite wide variations in the underlying settings and circumstances, the ubiquity of these patterns suggests there is a common way in which groups of humans fight each other. Our empirical findings follow from the analysis of myriad state-of-the-art datasets with resolution at the level of individual attacks, while our mathematical modelling involves numerical and analytical solutions of fission–fusion dynamics together with progress curve analysis.

Social Phenomena, 2015

We discuss the nature and origin of patterns emerging in the timing and severity of violent event... more We discuss the nature and origin of patterns emerging in the timing and severity of violent events within human conflicts and global terrorism. The underlying data are drawn from across geographical scales from municipalities up to entire continents, with great diversity in terms of terrain, underlying cause, socioeconomic and political setting, cultural and technological background. The data sources are equally diverse, being drawn from all available sources including non-government organizations, academia, and official government records. Despite these implicit heterogeneities and the seemingly chaotic nature of human violence, the patterns that we report are remarkably robust. We argue that this ubiquity of a particular pattern reflects a common way in which groups of humans fight each other, particularly in the asymmetric setting in which one weaker but ostensibly more adaptable opponent confronts a stronger but potentially more sluggish opponent. We propose a minimal generative model which reproduces these common statistical patterns while offering a physical explanation as to their cause. We also explain why our mechanistic approach, which is inspired by non-equilibrium statistical physics, fits naturally within the framework of recent ideas within the social science literature concerning analytical sociology, as well as setting our results in the wider context of real-world and cyber-based collective violence and illicit activity.

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2013

Calls are escalating for social media platforms to do more to mitigate extreme online communities... more Calls are escalating for social media platforms to do more to mitigate extreme online communities whose views can lead to real-world harms, e.g., mis/disinformation and distrust that increased Covid-19 fatalities, and now extend to monkeypox, unsafe baby formula alternatives, cancer, abortions, and climate change; white replacement that inspired the 2022 Buffalo shooter and will likely inspire others; anger that threatens elections, e.g., 2021 U.S. Capitol attack; notions of male supremacy that encourage abuse of women; anti-Semitism, anti-LGBQT hate and QAnon conspiracies. But should 'doing more' mean doing more of the same, or something different? If so, what? Here we start by showing why platforms doing more of the same will not solve the problem. Specifically, our analysis of nearly 100 million Facebook users entangled over vaccines and now Covid and beyond, shows that the extreme communities' ecology has a hidden resilience to Facebook's removal interventions; t...

Nature Scientific Reports, 2019

We quantify how and when extreme subpopulations emerge in a model society despite everyone having... more We quantify how and when extreme subpopulations emerge in a model society despite everyone having the same information and available resources-and show that counterintuitively these extremes will likely be enhanced over time by new social media algorithms designed to reduce division. We verify our analysis mathematically, and show it reproduces (a) the time-dependent behavior observed in controlled experiments on humans, (b) the findings of a recent study of online behavior by Facebook concerning the impact of 'soft' and 'hard' news, (c) the observed temporal emergence of extremes in U.S. House of Representatives voting, and (d) the real-time emergence of a division in national opinion during the ongoing peace process in colombia. We uncover a novel societal tipping point which is a 'ghost' of a nearby saddle-node bifurcation from dynamical systems theory, and which provides a novel policy opportunity for preventing extremes from emerging. A fascinating debate has opened up about the impact on a society of information and news, both true and false; its sudden global availability as a result of the Internet; and its deepening penetration via online social media (e.g. Facebook) 1-9. King et al. 7,8 elucidated the power of general media information in terms of activating people to express themselves, while Boxell et al's 1 empirical study suggests that current divisions are not specifically due to the Internet or social media. Meanwhile Stanley and co-workers had earlier found empirical evidence for 'crowd' formation in human populations responding to information broadcast during an economic competition 10. The impacts of division within a society are widespread, affecting the stories and narratives that individuals choose to share 3,4 , their political affiliations and how they vote 5,11 , and even how society views scientific findings, e.g. Darwinian evolution versus intelligent design, and climate change 12. On issues for which there is no counter-evidence, a surprisingly large number of people may still take an 'anti-crowd' viewpoint, e.g. the many people who believe the world is flat and attended the Flat Earth International Conference 13. Even within the community of professional scientists, there is a non-zero 'anti-crowd' that are skeptical about global warming 14. This same challenge of understanding the dynamics of division and hence extremes (as in Fig. 1), and the impact of external information, is important in many disciplines-from physical and chemical systems 15 to social, economic, ecological and political domains 4,16-31. Even if a community appears relatively stable when observed from the outside, there can be a complex underlying ecology of beliefs and opinions bubbling just below the surface , driven by feedbacks based on past history and changes in relationships. Just as a liquid may then suddenly boil over without any apparent warning, extremes can appear from out of nowhere. Foundational works in economics by Arthur 21 , in physics by Halpin-Healy 22,23 , in ecology by Gavrilets 24 , in social science by Epstein, Axtell 25 and Hedstrom 26 , in political science by Lazar 4,18,19 , and in psychology by Forsyth and Lewin 27,28 and others 29-31 , suggest that addressing this challenge will therefore require the development of minimal, generative theories of the population's out-of-equilibrium dynamics, even though any such theory will by necessity be a cartoon version of the real-world system 4,18,21-23,29-36 .

Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This arti... more Human development rests largely on the ability for a society to avoid violent conflict. This article proposes, and presents results from, an online technology platform and a methodology , which can help depolarize sectors of society, with the specific application to the current divisive postwar landscape within Colombia. The platform is based on deliber-ative democracy, and is designed to enable citizens to discuss issues in small groups. It exploits Colombia's high online connectivity to provide a safe, anonymous environment for expressing opinions related to both the government and the guerrillas. Preliminary findings suggest that the platform could aid bridge building among citizens, and it could be easily replicated in other situations globally. Given the polarization that seems to arise in technologically-enabled societies as a result of social media " bubbles, " the broader need for such a platform in local, regional, and national debates is particularly pressing. Keywords citizen deliberation – Colombia – divided societies – innovative deliberation – new technology – online deliberation – polarization