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Event Detection

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Home » Methodologies » Event Detection

Event Detection

“Event Detection” is the use of open-source data (including social media) to detect the digital traces of an “event”, and setting up a collection of data around that event to provide situational awareness. An “event” can be anything from an online phenomenon (ex: a conversation around a topic taking place in social media), to a revolution happening half-way around the world that is being tweeted about by thousands of demonstrators in real time. 

Although “Event Detection” has traditionally been rooted in the emergency response and crisis-mapping communities, the utility of this approach is increasingly being recognized by counterterrorism officials. Event detection, for example, can be used to recognize terrorist events when they occur abroad and to generate first-hand accounts of what is occurring in real time with links to rich sources of information such as embedded multimedia. This can be particularly useful for the counterterrorism community when there is a defined area of interest, for example, where officials suspect that some of their citizens are present as foreign fighters.

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