Talk:Stochastic terrorism

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I wanted to make a significant change that may go against an accepted concept

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I would like to make a significant change which may be against an accepted idea so I thought it should be put up for discussion. This section appears to be a misinterpretation of the meaning of an article. The article by Gordon Woo is in my not humble opinion poorly written and edited. I am not providing a link to the article because I am using an unofficial copy. Anyway you know how to find it.

Terminology

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The term was initially used to suggest that a quantifiable relationship may exist between seemingly random acts of terror and their intended goal of "perpetuating a reign of fear" via a manipulation of mass media and its capacity for "instant global news communication". For example, careful timing and placement of just a few moderately explosive devices could have the same intended effect as numerous random attacks or the use of more powerful explosives if they were shrewdly devised to elicit the maximum response from media organizations. It was theorized by Gordon Woo in a 2002 paper that "the absolute number of attacks within a year, i.e. the rhythm of terror, might ultimately be determined as much by publicity goals and the political anniversary calendar as by the size of the terrorist ranks".[1]


I want to replace it with this: (which is a truer interpretation of what was said in the article. Note the heading change also).

References

  1. ^ WOO, GORDON (2002-04-01). "Quantitative Terrorism Risk Assessment". The Journal of Risk Finance. 4 (1): 7–14. doi:10.1108/eb022949. ISSN 1526-5943.

References

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Contradictory throughout

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Even from the beginning of the article, the definition of the term is presented in a contradictory way, suggesting that it refers on the one hand to rhetoric that inspires physical violence, but also to the physical violence that is inspired by such rhetoric. This seems untenable and unmoored from the actual popular use of the term, which encompasses really only the former. natemup (talk) 09:13, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need more of this?

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Someone really needs to conduct a comprehensive review of the amount of "sociology/quack-science" material finding its way onto Wikipedia. This article, for example is clearly based on some sort of pseudo-science paper whose primary purpose is to "make a name for" the author rather than "elucidate" a principle. I fear that some people reading the article may be misled into believing that "stochastic terrorism" is established fact rather than opinion hiding behind a "weighty" sounding title. 86.14.43.73 (talk) 13:02, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stochastic terrorism is an established fast within political discussions or at least extremist political discussion. While individual accusations are controversial, scholars generally agree it exists. If you check the references, there are numerous sources supporting its existence. It also has a page on the Encyclopedia Britannica, and it would be rather odd for them to have a page that we don’t. 🔮🛷 starmanatee 🛷🔮 (talk) 12:06, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ha ha! Your contributions explain very well. There is clearly no use explaining to you, since this post appears to be a political statement and not a genuine argument. 🔮🛷 starmanatee 🛷🔮 (talk) 12:09, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Google seems to agree with the manatee here, with several documents:
https://csl.mpg.de/en/projects/philosophical-and-public-security-law-implications-of-stochastic-terrorism
and
https://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/stochastic_terrorism I like Astatine (Talk to me) 04:08, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The general idea is that, if you control a large enough platform, and can broadcast a message to a large enough audience, and that message is how some one person, or some group, needs to be killed, eventually someone is going to kill them. The existence of the idea as a human reality is so patently obvious to me that I assume that anyone who does not see it either lacks intelligence, they are dishonest, or both. Also, FYI the "experts" that pontificate on this and other matters, get paid, and are allowed to continue to get paid, based not just on what they say, but also what they do not say. This is why I do not think we should be relying on so-called experts, or even journalists, and for the exact same reason. There's a common sense quality to this concept and I think the vast majority of people would in general agree, and that it is the "experts" that piss into the community well for the purpose of preventing intelligent and common sense consensus on an idea that is universally accepted. Start naming large social media platforms as sources of stochastic terrorism, and see how quickly a very small minority of very controlled, and probably paid, "editors" will take over the Article in order to sanitize it for their corporate masters. In fact, I expect one to show up here very shortly.72.180.111.79 (talk) 01:37, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You may predict that I am the “editor” you augured would arrive to invalidate you and tell you how you're wrong. That prediction could not be further from the truth. If you bring reliable sources that match the definition, I will help add them. If those parts are missing from something in the article, I will say so just as plainly. I am not a mod or an admin or some other grand poobah with any authority here. I am just another user, like you, who values the truth and spreading the truth.
If your goal is to know what is true, using “they’re paid to say X” or "they're NOT paid to say Y" is a poor way to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is a poor razor because it does not inspect the content of a claim or the controls around it. An appeal to motive is an ad hominem circumstantial argument which proves nothing ipso facto.
A better way to figure out the truth is to ask: What is the claim? What evidence supports it? Can an independent reader trace the sources, rerun the numbers, and reach the same result? Journalism and scholarship are imperfect, but they embed mechanisms that push answers to those questions. They have named bylines and legal liability, editors who demand documents, public corrections, data deposits, methods sections, peer review, replication, conflict-of-interest disclosures, and, in many fields, preprints and post-publication critique that keep a record of objections. Those controls do not make a claim right, but they make error and deceit easier to find and fix.
By contrast, a “common sense” assertion that bypasses those checks can’t show how many people heard what, what was actually said, whether dehumanizing falsehoods were present, or how exposure connects to the offender. These are the very steps you must establish to move from “this sounds plausible” to “this specific case meets the stochastic-terrorism threshold.” If you think Wikipedia editors or experts are sanitizing the truth, wouldn't the decisive move NOT be to cry foul and declare them bought? Wouldn't it be more persuasive to present verifiable examples?
If there is some truth out there being omitted, I would like it to be included as much as you would, but we cannot rely on mere "common sense" or "feeling." Payment can create incentives, but so can ideology, anonymity, or clout. The reason we still rely on reported and reviewed work is not because authors are virtuous, but because those workflows leave an audit trail that outsiders can check and overturn when warranted. MasterfulNerd (talk) 03:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

references

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You mention Kurt Braddock. he is a Assistant Professor SOC. If you don't have any objection, I'll add him as a source.FourLights (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Balanced Examples of Stochastic Terrorism

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This article is one-sided. Can you not cite any examples of left- wing Stochastic Terrorism? Adam G Williams III (talk) 22:43, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Adam G Williams III. The Congressional baseball game shooting is probably the closest listed example. We should strive for balance in our examples, though it should be balance based on the proportion of coverage in reliable sources (e.g. if sources are mainly covering stochastic terrorism by right-handed people, we would cover those correspondingly more often). If you're aware of reliable sources that are covering more instances of left-wing stochastic terrorism, please mention them here.
I would say that this list is already too long. I don't want this article to become List of alleged incidents of stochastic terrorism. We should present a brief list of illustrative examples as a method of helping our readers understand the topic. Since stochastic terrorism is the subject of scholarly study, I'd suggest prioritizing examples mentioned in peer-reviewed publications. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:50, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Great idea Firefangledfeathers! I’ve gone ahead and restructured the “Alleged incidents” section with the aim to make it less like a catalog and more like a short set of illustrative cases.
Specifically:
• I prioritized incidents explicitly identified in the academic literature (Amman & Meloy, Angove, Munn, & Woo)
• Cut down redundancy so the section now has a representative handful instead of a sprawling list.
Adam G. Williams please note I kept the 2017 congressional baseball shooting to reflect the proportion of coverage in the scholarship; if I've missed anything, please ping me.
I’m open to further trimming or rephrasing if needed. MasterfulNerd (talk) 22:20, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Intentionally Missing from the Article

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First and foremost, it completely and obviously fails to mention the idea of "platforms" and "control". Two people having a conversation in private can never be "stochastic terrorism". The term requires the ability to mass-distribute ideas, opinions, perspectives, etc... A private conversation between two people, vs. a small rally of 50 vs. Facebook. Which of these is most-likely to result in a mass-shooting as a result of stochastic terrorism? And who controls the conversation, the rally and the social media platform? Aren't corporations more likely to be a source and a generator of stochastic terrorism than a small handful of people in an IRL gathering? This seems so obvious to me that I feel like I'm violating some kind of social code by telling the obvious truth of this out loud, like the emperor's new clothes, etc... but here I am doing it anyways. What is my punishment going to be for this?

Second, the "Alleged incidents" section of stochastic terrorism has intentionally left off the Rwandan genocide, where one side took control over the mass media (radio stations) and extorted the masses to take up machetes and kill the other side (Hutus, Tootsies, etc...) and again I allege that the most obvious and extreme example of stochastic terrorism has been intentionally left out of this Article because it directly references the control over the mass-media, and who has it. If this clear-cut example of stochastic terrorism (the Rwandan Genocide) is used in this Wikipedia Article, then the obvious point of who controls the mass media because too obvious to ignore, and popular social media platforms, networks, i.e. "corporations" will first come to mind, and then possibly be mentioned. And no, I absolutely do NOT assume "good faith" because I've been around long enough to recognize where it exists, and situations like this are simply in error, and when good faith does NOT exist, and every single aspect of this Article is 100% intentional. Finally, this Article would be improved if it accurately and correctly defined the actual meaning of the term "stochastic terrorism" instead of this half-baked pile of semi-literate weirdness. Imagine correctly and accurately describing the mechanisms of the stochastic terrorism that killed Charlie Kirk, and then imagine who would want to censor that truth, and why. And THAT is why this Article is in the condition that it is in.72.180.111.79 (talk) 01:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The scholarly literature defines stochastic terrorism as a mass-mediated process. The article already reflects this (see lead and “Defining features,” which mention mass media, amplification, and echo chambers). That said, I agree we could make this more explicit by adding a short subsection (e.g., “Platforms and amplification”) that summarizes how reach/repetition and recommendation systems scale risk, with citations to peer-reviewed work. If you have high-quality sources you’d like to propose here, please share them.
RTLM/Kangura’s role in the 1994 genocide is treated in reliable sources as direct incitement (and, legally, incitement to genocide): broadcasters named individuals and locations and explicitly urged killing. That’s the opposite of the “plausible deniability / individually unpredictable” pattern at the heart of stochastic accounts.
The Kirk case also doesn’t belong in “Alleged incidents,” plain and simple. The scholarly threshold for stochastic terrorism requires (1) identifiable public figure(s) who (2) use mass-reached, often coded/deniable rhetoric to wrongfully demonize a specific target, (3) evidence of amplification/saturation through platforms and echo-chambers, and (4) an indirect chain from that rhetoric to the offender. For Kirk, none of those links has been shown: there is no named upstream speaker repeatedly targeting Kirk in deniable terms, there is no documented, platform-level amplification of a slanderous/libelous message, and no evidence that the accused consumed a mass-mediated “wink-and-nod” campaign about Kirk.
Generalized hostility, memes, or post-hoc celebratory noise do not meet the wrongful-demonization + mass-reach + amplification standard nor do they establish the speaker -> amplifier -> receiver chain that Angove, Amman & Meloy, and other experts on stochastic terrorism treat as definitional. Adding the case without those elements would be original research and would dilute the concept into “anything bad that follows criticism,” which the literature explicitly warns against. When—and only when—reliable sources document that full chain, it would merit consideration. Until then, keeping it out isn’t “sanitizing" anything.
Happy to discuss this issue more if you disagree. After all, that's what the talk page is for. MasterfulNerd (talk) 03:00, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]