Who influences Free Keene?
Published by Skeptikos on Aug 21, 2013
The radical libertarian blog Free Keene, and the group of libertarians associated with it, are well-known for creating controversy in Keene, NH. But most people outside of the group don't know much about them or what drives them.
With that in mind, I decided to do some social network analysis to get a better understanding. Since I used to be involved in the group and know many of the activists involved, I simply asked for facebook friend data to use for the analysis.
I got 3 sets of friend data, which was enough to create a fairly complete graph of the Free Keene group, showing the ties of 262 people. Many aren't in Keene, and many aren't involved in the controversial activism, but they're all part of the Free Keene social network.
(Click to enlarge)
None of the groupings in the graph is entirely clear-cut. There are a lot of exceptions. But the descriptions are about 90% accurate. (I ran an algorithm in Gephi to find them.) The blue nodes belong to people currently active in Free Keene affairs. Red nodes belong to people who aren't involved in the activism. Some of them dropped out for one reason or another, some of them never got involved, and some of them moved away. Libertarian internet friends were also included in the red nodes. Green nodes are Manchester libertarian activists.
Given the apocryphal feud between Keene and Manchester activists, I was mildly surprised by the strong showing Manchester makes in the network. I was also surprised by how dense the connections are – on average, each person was facebook friends with 54 other people in the network.
But most surprising is the people who aren't in the network.
Since I have a vague idea of who most of the people are, I was able to tally up a few other characteristics. In particular, whether people are traditional political activists ('politicos'), and whether they are long-time Keene residents. The results go a long way toward explaining why Free Keene is the way it is*:
Libertarian politicos and long-time Keene residents both criticize Free Keene on a regular basis. But with each group occupying such a small minority in the social space, Free Keene activists are slow to respond to their concerns – if they respond at all. Politicos and Keene natives just aren't socially relevant.
These graphs suggest a strategy for outside groups to moderate Free Keene activists – make friends.
It's not likely, however. Politicos don't want to be associated with Free Keene's extremism, and avoid the group for that reason. Long-time Keene residents upset by Free Keene tend to think of them as a nuisance, and won't rearrange their social lives in response. There are occasional exceptions, but not enough to change the basic situation.
Any major change will have to come from another group, probably the Free Keene activists themselves. And that's hard to predict.
* * *
* Since I don't know everyone in the network graph, I may have missed some politicos and long-time Keene residents, and the bar graphs may slightly exaggerate the situation.
hps bulb
11-6-2014 07:49am
excellent submit, very informative. I'm wondering why the opposite experts of this sector don't notice this. You must continue your writing. I am confident, you have a great readers' base already!