- There are several types of social media channels, which can be relevant for identifying and analysing human smuggling activities, such as:
- General information channels about migration (e.g. immigration information – often in English or French)
- Online communities created and managed by particular smuggling groups (see article on Branded smuggling operations for more information)
- Online communities created for people seeking to move irregularly between countries (e.g. Tunisia to Italy)
- Groups providing information on the reputation of particular human smugglers (see article on Branded smuggling operations for more information).
- Accounts can be identified based on terms and/or emojis which refer to:
- Activity
- Countries or places
- Means of transport (linked to the activity)
- Activity included in channel description:
[migration] = [immigration – Arabic الهجرة; also, emigration – French] [travel] [move] (e.g. travel to Turkey/travel to Europe):- More rarely one can also encounter the term [smuggling – Arabic: تهريب]
- Depending on the cultural group the same activity (e.g. irregular migration on a particular route) can have a distinct name: e.g. ‘Boza’ [boza free; bozafree+name of country of origin, such as bozafreesenegal] for French speaking migrants coming from Sub-Saharan Africa on the Central Mediterranean route and ‘Lghorba’ for Arabic speaking migrants coming from North Africa on the Central Mediterranean Route [also algharbata/lghourba or alternatively harga/haraga/hrigaa/haragadzz/harragas for travel]
- Moreover, doing the boza are often called soldiers [soldats], therefore the two concepts are often found together.
- Other variants for activity are [study] (e.g. study outside Iraq; study in Europe); [exitone]
- Country names included in channel description:
[country of origin] + [to] + [country of destination]; countries can be described using text [Tunisia to Italy] or emojis by means of the countries’ flags- Other variants of this are: out of [country of origin] (e.g. out of Iraq – Arabic: الهجره خارج العراق); study outside [country of origin] (e.g. study outside Iraq – Arabic: الدراسة خارج العراق ( الموازي الدولي))
- On TikTok video descriptions include a mix of emojis (flags + means of transport) and hashtags which often include two or more of the following: departure point (e.g. #tipaza or #bejaia located in Algeria, #mlilia – Melilla); arrival point e.g. [#marseille, #madrid, #paris] and description of activity (#harga, #ghorba etc).
Recommendation: For TikTok for the Western and Central Mediterranean route a good way to search for videos showcasing irregular migration is using hashtags associated with localities on the North African coast in Algeria, Spain, Morocco and Tunisia.
- Modes of transport: depending on route & platform one can encounter different types of emojis e.g. TikTok – different types of ships, swimming person – for Mediterranean; A route description could include several such emojis to describe different means of transport/situations encountered (e.g. ship + truck + walk to avoid police).
- Common use of coded language to refer to different types of smuggling using a particular mean of transport: e.g. on TikTok & Facebook, especially for Asian migrants smuggling by a small car is identified as taxi game [alternatives are available taxi or the emoji for taxi ]
Recommendation: Terms such as “taxi game”, “jungle game” (for walking), “VIP game” (implying border police cooperation) are more often used on Facebook groups. - Hashtags for modes of transport are language dependent: e.g. #pirogue for French speaking migrants [used in Senegal]; #boat/#ship for other categories
- Reference to irregularity of travel: e.g. ghost emojis ; or ninja
- Reference to success or failure: success marked by heart/happy emoji /crown + flag of country of destination/arrival; while failure is showcased as broken heart, crying emoji .
- Common use of coded language to refer to different types of smuggling using a particular mean of transport: e.g. on TikTok & Facebook, especially for Asian migrants smuggling by a small car is identified as taxi game [alternatives are available taxi or the emoji for taxi ]
- Identifying relevant content can be difficult because of the following challenges:
- Use of Slang/coded language: terms such as boza/donkey/game employed to refer to irregular migration.
- Misspelling (intentional to avoid detection or not): donkey spelled as dunky/dunkey/donkey; Europa spelled as oropa; Macedonia spelled as Macodina; taxi as texi.
- There is also misspelling as a result of translation from other languages (e.g. Sbta/Sebta/Sabta for Ceuta when translating from Arabic); Europa spelled as oropa; Recommendation: Remove vowels from name when searching for specific place #hashtags; or alternatively try different combinations of 1 or more vowels (e.g. Mlilia for Melila; Sbta for Ceuta).
- Accounts can also be identified based on profile photos and/or description (depending on the platform). Often accounts use profile pictures in accordance with the type of activity advertised and the route: e.g. people with backpacks + EU Map; people in and boat on the sea; images of identity documents.
- In the case of Telegram and Facebook, it is often the case that accounts advertising human smuggling services are often connected to similar accounts, thus showcasing the network dimension of this threat.
