Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Laurence Grondin-Robillard, Professeure associée à l’École des médias et doctorante en communication, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Oxford Dictionary has named “rage bait” its Word of the Year. The quantity of live-streamed drama in 2025 has made it clear that outrage is now fuelling much online content.

The death of French streamer Raphaël Graven, alias Jean Pormanove, was particularly striking in this respect. Before dying live on Kick after streaming for 298 hours, Graven had been subjected to humiliating scenes and psychological abuse from two co-streamers, according to an investigation by French news outlet Médiapart.

Although the recording of the live stream leading up to his death is no longer available, excerpts from previous broadcasts that show Pormanove being ridiculed or mistreated continue to circulate online.

As an associate professor and doctoral student at UQAM’s École des médias (School of Media), I closely study the dynamics that shape digital platforms. Increasingly, platforms use rage bait to turn anger into a tool for attracting attention and advancing their commercial goals.

The Kick platform, comparable to Twitch, has been blamed for Graven’s death, and rightly so. A lack of moderation and the encouragement of gambling and games of chance are among the most frequent criticisms directed at it.

The aftermath of Graven’s death

Just a few days after Graven’s death, 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death on the subway in the North Carolina city of Charlotte. Images and surveillance footage of her death went viral via X, Instagram and TikTok in a matter of hours, showing the young woman wounded, alone and without help.

The fascination with Zarutska’s slaying is nothing new. What’s more unusual, and turns this into rage bait, is how it was exploited.

Conservative YouTuber Benny Johnson accused the news media of ignoring the case, claiming that “if she were black and her killer white, the media would be talking about it non-stop.” His statement was intended to elicit a strong emotional reaction from both sides.

Beyond the reappropriation of news items to produce content designed to provoke outrage, the past year was also marked by the strategic use of videos generated by artificial intelligence for the same purpose.

One example is the sequence depicting the the president of the United States as a “king” flying over a “No Kings” protests and dropping a brown liquid resembling excrement onto the crowd. It was even shared by Donald Trump himself last October.

Word of the Year

In this highly charged context, rage bait became Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year, with its use reportedly tripling over the last 12 months. The term is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger,” which is “typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account.”

Oxford Words of the Year have been linked to digital culture for several years now. In 2022, it was “goblin mode,” in 2023, “rizz” won the vote and in 2024, it was “brain rot.”

This year, more than 30,000 people voted to elect the 2025 Word of the Year. The term was in competition with “aura farming” — cultivating one’s aura — and “biohack”, a set of practices aimed at optimizing the health and performance of the body and mind through changes in lifestyle, diet and technology.

From click bait to rage bait

From online clickbait, we are now moving towards rage bait, with the same objective: to gain online visibility.

The problem lies not only with content creators who use this type of bait, but also with social media platforms themselves. A decade ago, platforms were described as echo chambers, spaces where users were exposed almost exclusively to content that confirmed their interests, opinions and beliefs. It’s getting harder to say that today.

Beyond the case of the platform X — which Elon Musk has already significantly revamped since acquiring Twitter — both Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew also relaxed their terms of service in 2025 in the name of freedom of expression.

Zuckerberg is seeking to reconnect with the American Republican political class, while Chew is attempting to maintain TikTok’s access to the American market, which is under threat from legislative pressure. This new approach is leading to the emergence of digital spaces where controversial content, particularly rage bait, is acceptable.

TikTok claims to prohibit bloody or disturbing content, even if it is in the public interest, in addition to having a mission to “inspire creativity and bring joy.”

But this type of content generates engagement. As a result, it circulates and continues to be recommended. It remains visible thanks to its profitability.

This paradox lies at the heart of the problem: different platforms say they want to limit violence, but they profit from the elements that make violence go viral. So we’re therefore trapped in an ecosystem where outrage becomes an economic resource and where the most intense emotions fuel visibility.

A profound change in the web

In this sense, the shift from clickbait to rage bait is not just an evolution in visibility techniques. It highlights a profound change in social media.

This dynamic calls for a rethinking not only of moderation rules, but also of the business models that maintain this cycle of exposure, outrage and profitability.

In light of France’s commission of inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors and other similar work, the Oxford Dictionary’s choice seems less like a lexical tribute than an acknowledgement of social media’s failures.

The recent Words of the Year illustrate an online environment where mental exhaustion, numbness and outrage have become commonplace. Graven’s death reminds us that human lives are caught up in systems that turn vulnerability into spectacle and suffering into a product.

Laurence Grondin-Robillard ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. ‘Rage bait’ is the Oxford Word of the Year, showing how social media is manufacturing anger – https://theconversation.com/rage-bait-is-the-oxford-word-of-the-year-showing-how-social-media-is-manufacturing-anger-271584

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass Lowell

Owais Hammam was walking near his home in Khirbet Bani Harith in the West Bank on Dec. 3, 2025, when, according to media reports, he was kidnapped by Jewish settlers. Over several hours at a nearby settlement, the 18-year-old Palestinian is alleged to have endured repeated beatings, humiliation and harassment.

Israel military soldiers were reportedly involved in the incident, before they eventually released him the next morning. Hamman was hospitalized with multiple injuries and severe psychological trauma.

The alleged attack is far from isolated. The post-Oct. 7, 2023, environment has seen an escalation in settler violence, which has gone from primarily involving vandalism and property destruction to now being marked by kidnapping, prolonged abuse and apparent military complicity. In the two years to October 2025, more than 3,200 Palestinians were “forcibly displaced by settler violence and movement restrictions,” according to United Nations figures.

Violence has increased to an extent that the U.N. said October 2025 was the worst month for West Bank settler violence since it started recording incidents in 2006.

As a scholar who has studied Israeli extremist groups for over two decades, I contend that the dramatic escalation of settler violence in the West Bank reveals a profound transformation within Israel’s state institutions. Rather than serving as purported neutral enforcers of law and order, the military, Israeli police and the broader governmental apparatus have become increasingly aligned with — and at times directly complicit in — violent settler actions against Palestinians.

This institutional reluctance to address settler violence is not merely a failure of enforcement, I would argue, but a deliberate outcome of deep social, political and cultural changes that have reshaped Israeli society since at least the mid-1990s.

Settlers’ dream government

The most visible manifestation of this transformation is the composition of Israel’s current government, formed in December 2022.

For the first time, key ministerial positions are held by individuals with explicit pro-settler ideologies and personal ties to some of the most violent streams of the settlement movement. Hence, it is not surprising that prominent figures such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — both settlers with what has been described as extremist ideologies — have actively implemented policies that facilitate and legitimize settler violence.

For instance, Ben-Gvir has significantly eased firearm regulations, issuing over 100,000 new gun licenses since October 2023, with settlers receiving preferential access.

Smotrich, meanwhile, has publicly distributed security equipment to illegal outposts and allocated substantial budgets for settler militias. This political backing fosters a climate in which settlers feel emboldened to act with impunity.

Beyond individual ministers, the Israeli government has pursued structural reforms that systematically undermine institutional checks on settler violence.

The transfer of the main Israeli governing body in the West Bank — the Civil Administration authority — from military central command to Smotrich’s Finance Ministry represents a fundamental shift in governance. For decades, the Civil Administration coordinated the provision of West Bank services such as health and education. It also served as an instrument for coordinating with the Palestinian Authority, the body entrusted per the Oslo Accords with limited self-rule over parts of the occupied West Bank.

By placing the Civil Administration under political control rather than independent military command, the government has weakened one of the few mechanisms capable of restraining settler expansion.

Similarly, plans to subordinate the West Bank Border Police to Ben-Gvir’s Ministry of National Security threaten to dismantle the unified command structure that has been instrumental in managing tensions in the occupied West Bank since 1967.

Capitulation to settlers

Concurrent to these developments has been a blurring of lines between civilian settlers and uniformed security personnel. After Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli authorities distributed 8,000 army rifles to so-called civilian settlement defense squads and regional defense battalions.

These armed settler groups now operate alongside — and are increasingly indistinguishable from — official security forces. Settlers frequently wear official uniforms and carry army-issued weapons during attacks on Palestinians.

Security infrastructure such as police stations is often physically located within settlements, fostering close relationships between law enforcement and settler communities.

I would suggest that this geographic and institutional proximity makes neutral policing nearly impossible.

The cultural and social dimensions of this phenomenon run even deeper. Many settlers serve as army reservists, creating overlapping identities between civilian and military personnel.

Civilian security coordinators, who are responsible for coordination between the military and the settlements’ own “defense squads,” actively shape military operational policy. They help define settlement boundaries, determine areas prohibited to Palestinians and occasionally command soldiers.

Soldiers typically interpret clashes as friction between civilians rather than crimes requiring intervention. When violence intensifies, they often declare an “emergency situation” and defend settlers rather than protecting Palestinian victims.

Societal shifts

The transformation of Israeli institutions reflects broader societal changes where the settler movement has evolved from one of many societal factions to a dominant political force.

Settlers hold key positions in government and military leadership and exercise considerable political influence.

As a result, settler violence has become increasingly embedded in the operational logic of state institutions, turning law enforcement bodies from ostensibly neutral arbiters into what international observers increasingly describe as enablers or participants in systematic violence against Palestinians.

It represents, I would argue, a fundamental reorientation of state power in explicit service of settler expansionism.

Moreover, the failure to hold perpetrators of settler violence to account reveals the extent of the institutional capture. Between 2005 and 2023, more than 93% of police investigations into settler violence were closed without indictment – and only 3% resulted in convictions.

In 2021, the last year for which I was able to obtain data, Israeli authorities opened just 87 investigations for “ideologically motivated offenses,” while U.N. monitors documented 585 incidents.

The Israeli police chief in the West Bank has gone so far as to claim that reports of settler violence are fabricated by “radical left-wing anarchists.”

The erosion of judicial scrutiny

The Israeli Supreme Court has formally acknowledged that the West Bank constitutes occupied territory under international law.

Nonetheless, the judicial architecture historically accommodates settlement expansion. Settlers are subject to Israeli civilian law, including the ability to vote in Israeli elections while Palestinians face military law, producing vastly asymmetrical outcomes in cases involving violence and property rights.

The country’s Supreme Court, while occasionally striking down discriminatory measures against Palestinians, has bowed to security rationales that permit the broader settlement enterprise to proceed. For example, in 2022, the court rejected a petition to return Palestinian land in the city of Hebron, ruling that an
Israeli presence is part of the military’s “regional security doctrine.”

Similarly, in many petitions against military policy of house demolitions, the Supreme Court has adopted a deferential stance toward security authorities.

Impact on the peace process

The implications of this institutional capitulation to settlers’ interests extend far beyond the West Bank itself. Settlers have explicitly viewed the war in the Gaza Strip as an opportunity to accelerate their agenda, forcing over 1,000 Palestinians from at least 18 communities since Oct. 7, 2023.

In addition to the humanitarian concerns, this pattern of violence-driven displacement undermines the viability of a two-state solution, which has returned to international discourse as the centerpiece of “day after” planning for Gaza. It also undermines any claim Israel might make that in lieu of a two-state solution, it can enforce the rule of law equally across people living in territories under its control.

So while international actors focus on ceasefire negotiations and reconstruction, the violence in the West Bank undermines the territorial and demographic foundations necessary for Palestinian statehood and makes the prospect of a lasting ceasefire more distant. The implications of that for a just future are indeed dire.

Arie Perliger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. West Bank violence is soaring, fueled by a capitulation of Israeli institutions to settlers’ interests – https://theconversation.com/west-bank-violence-is-soaring-fueled-by-a-capitulation-of-israeli-institutions-to-settlers-interests-269162

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sebastian Maslow, Associate Professor, International Relations, Contemporary Japanese Politics & Society, University of Tokyo

Though China and Japan are experienced in dealing with diplomatic crises, relations between the two neighbours appear to have reached a new low. And this time, their conflict may not be easily resolved.

What’s behind the latest crisis and what’s driving the escalation?

The current round of tensions was triggered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in the Diet (Japanese parliament) on November 7, suggesting a move by Beijing to use military force against Taiwan would trigger a Japanese military intervention.

Presented as a “worst-case scenario”, such a Chinese attempt would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, she said, justifying its right to collective self-defence to support its US security ally in restoring peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Diplomatic crisis

Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945. Later, it harboured Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists after their defeat by Mao Zedong’s communist troops in 1949.

Today, Beijing considers Taiwan a province of China, though it has never been under the Communists’ rule. Statements to the contrary are considered an intervention in China’s domestic affairs, crossing a red line for Beijing’s elite.

Demanding a swift retraction of Takaichi’s remarks and an apology, Beijing’s brigade of “wolf warrior diplomats” launched a war of words against her. With the Japanese prime minister not backing down, Beijing then retaliated with a mix of political, economic and military pressure.

China’s Communist leadership warned its citizens against travelling to Japan, and students were told to reconsider their plans there, apparently because of safety concerns. Imports of Japanese seafood were reduced or put on hold, while concerts and movie screenings featuring Japanese artists were cancelled.

China’s Coast Guard and Navy vessels also passed through the waters of the Senkaku islands, a territory administered by Japan but claimed by China as the Diaoyu islands.

Amid all this, an international campaign to blame Japan for the current crisis was rolled out to isolate Tokyo. A formal protest was issued to the UN, and in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, global leaders were pressured to align with his Communist government against Japan.

The diplomatic turmoil reached a climax in early December with Chinese military planes directing their radars at Japanese fighter jets.

Tension spills into trade

China and Japan are key trading partners. This year alone, a fifth of Japan’s inbound tourism came from China. Beijing’s tightening the screws on Japan will therefore have a measurable impact on the Japanese economy. Some estimate the economic fallout could reach ¥2.2 trillion (A$14.2 billion).

Nevertheless, Beijing’s measures still fall short of past episodes of conflict between the two.

In the early 2000s, Japanese prime ministers’ pilgrimages to the Yasukuni war shrine and revisions of Japanese history textbooks triggered massive anti-Japanese protests across China.

In 2010, Beijing stopped exporting rare earth minerals to Japan in retaliation for Japanese authorities arresting a Chinese captain and his crew after they rammed their ship into a Japanese Coast Guard vessel.

Japan’s “nationalisation” of the disputed Senkaku islands in 2012, buying the isles from their private owner, triggered a significant increase in China’s military presence in the East China Sea.

In light of Japan’s wartime past and China’s economic and military rise, diplomatic disputes have been a default in Sino-Japanese relations since both countries normalised their ties in 1972.

Beijing and Tokyo, however, established a path that has skilfully avoided this from spilling over into trade and business. Japanese investments and economic aid were instrumental in driving China’s industrial modernisation, and both countries have developed close trade relations.

So, when relations hit a low in the 2000s, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a point by choosing Beijing as his first visit abroad in 2006, declaring a “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests”.

Ever since, this wording has served as the broader framework for manoeuvring tensions in Sino-Japanese relations.

No off-ramp in sight

This time, however, de-escalation and a return to the status quo may not be as easily achieved.

Takaichi has portrayed herself as an arch-conservative who has inherited her mentor Abe’s policy agenda. She has pledged to restore a “strong Japan” by beefing up Tokyo’s defence capabilities and further strengthening the alliance with the United States.

The current dispute should not come as a surprise. Takaichi has established herself as a China hawk. She has repeatedly visited Taiwan, and in April this year called for a “quasi-security alliance” with Taipei. This reflects concerns in Tokyo that have linked the security of Taiwan directly to that of Japan, and put security across the Taiwan Strait at the centre of the US-Japan alliance.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, then-Prime Minister Kishida Fumio declared “Ukraine may be the East Asia of tomorrow,” explicitly putting Taiwan at the core of international security.

Already, Takaichi has announced plans to increase Japan’s defence budget to 2% of its GDP by the end of March 2026, two years ahead of schedule. To secure the financial resources, tax hikes are part of the discussion. A nation on alert against foreign threats will help temper opposition.

Supported by Taiwan’s leadership and large portions of the island’s public, Takaichi has used the standoff with Beijing to present herself as a resolute leader. She has also redirected the public’s focus away from her party’s past scandals to the current security crisis. Two months into office, her cabinet enjoys high support.

A quick end to the crisis is not in sight. Xi’s China is more powerful than it was a decade ago, leaving it with plenty of options to escalate tensions. The weaponisation of trade and increased military exercises are the tools Beijing will likely employ.

Yet, Japan has learned from past crises. Its supply chains have become more resilient. De-risking its investments and production away from China is an established strategy.

Takaichi’s current governing coalition also does not include the Komeito party, which has strong ties to Beijing. Within her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), members of the old guard, such as Toshihiro Nikai, who maintained channels to Beijing’s elite, have lost their influence. Figures sceptical of China’s rise, such as Taro Aso, remain at the centre of the party.

With diplomatic channels in short supply and domestic political agendas paramount, an off-ramp for the current dispute is not in sight.

Most importantly, however, geopolitical transitions have created a new context for Sino-Japanese tensions to play out. A confident China has backed Russia in its war in Ukraine and claims leadership of the Global South. The Trump administration has undermined confidence in established US alliances, accelerating polarisation in the international system. Deterring China will become an increasingly difficult task.

Sebastian Maslow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why tensions between China and Japan are unlikely to be resolved soon – https://theconversation.com/why-tensions-between-china-and-japan-are-unlikely-to-be-resolved-soon-271527

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Thanh-Son Pham, ARC DECRA Fellow in Geophysics, Australian National University

Glacial earthquakes are a special type of earthquake generated in cold, icy regions. First discovered in the northern hemisphere more than 20 years ago, these quakes occur when huge chunks of ice fall from glaciers into the sea.

Until now, only a very few have been found in the Antarctic. In a new study soon to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, I present evidence for hundreds of these quakes in Antarctica between 2010 and 2023, mostly at the ocean end of the Thwaites Glacier – the so-called Doomsday Glacier that could send sea levels rising rapidly if it were to collapse.

A recent discovery

A glacial earthquake is created when tall, thin icebergs fall off the end of a glacier into the ocean.

When these icebergs capsize, they clash violently with the “mother” glacier. The clash generates strong mechanical ground vibrations, or seismic waves, that propagate thousands of kilometres from the origin.

What makes glacial earthquakes unique is that they do not generate any high-frequency seismic waves. These waves play a vital role in the detection and location of typical seismic sources, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and nuclear explosions.

Due to this difference, glacial earthquakes were only discovered relatively recently, despite other seismic sources having been documented routinely for several decades.

Varying with the seasons

Most glacial earthquakes detected so far have been located near the ends of glaciers in Greenland, the largest ice cap in the northern hemisphere.

The Greenland glacial earthquakes are relatively large in magnitude. The largest ones are similar in size to those caused by nuclear tests conducted by North Korea in the past two decades. As such, they have been detected by a high-quality, continuously operating seismic monitoring network worldwide.

The Greenland events vary with the seasons, occurring more often in late summer. They have also become more common in recent decades. The signs may be associated with a faster rate of global warming in the polar regions.

Elusive evidence

Although Antarctica is the largest ice sheet on Earth, direct evidence of glacial earthquakes caused by capsizing icebergs there has been elusive. Most previous attempts to detect Antarctic glacial earthquakes used the worldwide network of seismic detectors.

However, if Antarctic glacial earthquakes are of much lower magnitude than those in Greenland, the global network may not detect them.

In my new study, I used seismic stations in Antarctica itself to look for signs of these quakes. My search turned up more than 360 glacier seismic events, most of which are not yet included in any earthquake catalogue.

The events I detected were in two clusters, near Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers. These glaciers have been the largest sources of sea-level rise from Antarctica.

Earthquakes at the Doomsday Glacier

Thwaites Glacier is sometimes known as the Doomsday Glacier. If it were to collapse completely it would raise global sea levels by 3 metres, and it also has the potential to fall apart rapidly.

About two-thirds of the events I detected – 245 out of 362 – were located near the marine end of Thwaites. Most of these events are likely glacial earthquakes due to capsizing icebergs.

The strongest driver of such events does not appear to be the annual oscillation of warm air temperatures that drives the seasonal behaviour of Greenland glacier earthquakes.

Instead, the most prolific period of glacial earthquakes at Thwaites, between 2018 and 2020, coincides with a period of accelerated flow of the glacier’s ice tongue towards the sea. The ice-tongue speed-up period was independently confirmed by satellite observations.

This speed-up could have been caused by ocean conditions, the effect of which is not yet well understood.

The findings suggest the short-term scale impact of ocean states on the stability of marine-terminating glaciers. This is worth further exploration to assess the potential contribution of the glacier to future sea-level rise.

The second largest cluster of detections occurred near the Pine Island Glacier. However, these were consistently located 60–80 kilometres from the waterfront, so they are not likely to have been caused by capsizing icebergs.

These events remain puzzling and require follow-up research.

What’s next for Antarctic glacial earthquake research

The detection of glacial earthquakes associated with iceberg calving at Thwaites Glacier could help answer several important research questions. These include a fundamental question about the potential instability of the Thwaites Glacier due to the interaction of the ocean, ice and solid ground near where it meets the sea.

Better understanding may hold the key to resolving the current large uncertainty in the projected sea-level rise over the next couple of centuries.

Thanh-Son Pham receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Hundreds of iceberg earthquakes detected at the crumbling end of Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier – https://theconversation.com/hundreds-of-iceberg-earthquakes-detected-at-the-crumbling-end-of-antarcticas-doomsday-glacier-268893