Crowdsourcing and the Online Mobilisation of Security Threats

Online collective actions are usually perceived as mechanisms that enable communication or facilitate the organisation of offline activities, thereby helping to radicalise and mobilise individuals and groups. However, online actions also function as sites of confrontational action in their own right.

Online action, often referred to as online activism or digital activism, involves using digital platforms and technology to promote social or political change.

Our research aimed to establish a data-driven framework to identify the many ways activists use technology, moving beyond commonly-described behaviours such as hashtag campaigns and online petitions, and to determine how we could classify these actions. This multi-step process involved conducting OSINT searches, consulting experts, interviewing activists, and administering online surveys.

The findings of this research revealed that, although social psychology often uses the term “online actions” as a catch-all category to distinguish these behaviours from more direct or impactful offline actions, different types of online actions are employed in very different ways and serve distinct purposes. This work identified five classes of online actions and highlighted the importance of understanding who these actions were targeting. A key distinction was whether the actions are used to internally organise and share information among ingroup members (as many social media-based behaviours, like hashtag campaigns, do), or whether they were designed to directly target and attack outgroups. The latter category included more aggressive and harmful actions, such as doxxing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and swatting.

From interviews with activists, we found they strategically make such tactical choices, ensuring actions align with the group’s objectives. This involved deciding whether to address the immediate needs of marginalised ingroup members, such as generating or sharing resources, or to adopt outward-facing tactics meant to advance longer-term goals, such as awareness-raising campaigns. They discussed how decisions between these types of action were rooted in assessing the receptivity of political institutions and public opinion, and balanced against how acute ingroup needs were at a given moment. Understanding how activists navigate these trade-offs can also help identify risk factors for when groups might escalate to more harmful tactics, such as hacking or swatting.

The Power and Risk of Digital Tactics

Several factors make it increasingly important to recognise online actions as more than just communicative tools. As states, organisations, and law enforcement agencies use technology for activities such as intelligence gathering and surveillance, the area of contestation is shifting into online platforms. Activists have identified that online, rather than offline, actions can provide a more effective form of resistance, enabling them to target the technology itself. This can involve attempts to undermine the integrity of information collected (e.g., flooding reporting systems with irrelevant or misleading submissions) or to disrupt the availability of the technological infrastructure, taking platforms offline with cyberattacks. Furthermore, the entanglement of physical and digital systems means that digital forms of action can be both more appealing and potentially more disruptive. 

In another study, we examined how a DDoS group discussed and justified attacks against major companies and critical infrastructure, including hospital systems and missile-warning systems. Charges were brought against the leader of the group for criminal hacking, as well as seeking to cause injury or death, underscoring the offline harm posed by these online tactics.

The entanglement of physical and digital systems means that digital forms of action can be both more appealing and potentially more disruptive.

Additionally, crowdsourcing is frequently used alongside various forms of online collective action, particularly within grassroots movements. It frees groups from the limitations faced by more formalised organisations, which often depend on the skill set and number of existing members. With crowdsourced actions, as long as one individual possesses sufficient technical knowledge, they can develop code and software along with instructions and share them with the wider group. This enables individuals with little or no technical expertise to participate in technically disruptive campaigns. Crowdsourcing therefore creates opportunities for actions that are collective, not only in a behavioural sense, but also psychologically.

Similarly, tools and technologies are increasingly democratising access to sophisticated hacking techniques. Generative AI bots have already been employed to automate cyberattacks at every level of operation, including suggesting targets, providing code, analysing stolen data, and drafting ransom messages.

Conclusion

The evolving landscape of online collective action underscores the need for nuanced understanding of digital behaviours. As technology continues to democratise access to powerful tools, the boundary between communication and direct action becomes increasingly blurred. Recognising the strategic nature of these choices, and the contexts that shape them, is essential for anticipating risks and developing effective countermeasures. The interplay between political, psychological, and technological factors means that online actions can have profound real-world consequences.