ABSTRACT

Online and digital platforms play a central role in today’s illegal activities and related networks. Communicating through these channels makes creating an online criminal identity crucial to establish oneself as trustworthy and meet the needs of potential buyers, especially when reaching out to strangers in a market. A highly needed skill is balancing the signals of attracting wanted attention and of avoiding possible risks. This article explores how social media drug dealers present themselves in 173 Facebook profiles. The analysis of these online criminal personas is applied in two stages: a) a broader content analysis of the profile content and b) by using signalling theory to understand the overall visual presentation of these online criminal personas. I find that sellers fall into three main persona types: the professional dealer, private dealer, and cultural dealer. These personas signal trust in different ways through their choice of pictures, text, and personal information.

摘要

在线和数字平台在当今的非法活动和相关网络中发挥着核心作用。通过这些渠道进行交流使得创建一个在线犯罪身份对于建立自己的信誉并满足潜在购买者的需求至关重要，特别是在与市场中的陌生人接触时。一项非常需要的技能是平衡吸引想要的注意力和避免可能的风险的信号。本文探讨了社交媒体毒贩如何在173个Facebook个人资料中展示自己。这些在线犯罪角色的分析分为两个阶段：a）对个人资料内容进行更广泛的内容分析； b）通过使用信号传递理论来理解这些在线犯罪角色的整体视觉表现。我发现卖家分为三种主要的角色类型：专业经销商，私人经销商和文化经销商。这些角色通过选择图片，文字和个人信息以不同的方式表示信任。