Related papers: U.S. Election Hardens Hate Universe
Hate and extremism cannot be controlled globally without understanding how they operate at scale. Both have escalated dramatically during the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine-Russia wars. Here we show how the online hate-extremism system is now…
With its lenient moderation policies and long-standing associations with potentially unlawful activities, Telegram has become an incubator for problematic content, frequently featuring conspiratorial, hyper-partisan, and fringe narratives.…
The rapid integration of the Internet into our daily lives has led to many benefits but also to a number of new, wide-spread threats such as online hate, trolling, bullying, and generally aggressive behaviours. While research has…
Online hate is dynamic, adaptive -- and is now surging armed with AI/GPT tools. Its consequences include personal traumas, child sex abuse and violent mass attacks. Overcoming it will require knowing how it operates at scale. Here we…
We examined how online hate is motivated by receiving social approval via Walther's (2024) social approval theory of online hate, which argues (H1a) more signals of social approval on hate messages predicts more subsequent hate messages,…
Adversarial interactions against politicians on social media such as Twitter have significant impact on society. In particular they disrupt substantive political discussions online, and may discourage people from seeking public office. In…
Online political hostility is pervasive, yet it remains unclear how toxicity varies across campaign issues and political ideology, and what psychosocial signals and framing accompany toxic expression online. In this work, we present a…
The 2020 US Elections have been, more than ever before, characterized by social media campaigns and mutual accusations. We investigate in this paper if this manifests also in online communication of the supporters of the candidates Biden…
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence has become a global threat to women's political representation and democracy. Understanding how online hate affects its targets is thus paramount. We analyse 10 million tweets directed at female…
Online hate messaging is a pervasive issue plaguing the well-being of social media users. This research empirically investigates a novel theory positing that online hate may be driven primarily by the pursuit of social approval rather than…
Toxic and uncivil politics is widely seen as a growing threat to democratic values and governance, yet our understanding of the drivers and evolution of political incivility remains limited. Leveraging a novel dataset of nearly 18 million…
Online hate speech is responsible for violent attacks such as, e.g., the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, thereby posing a significant threat to vulnerable groups and society in general. However, little is known about what makes hate…
The Web has become the main source for news acquisition. At the same time, news discussion has become more social: users can post comments on news articles or discuss news articles on other platforms like Reddit. These features empower and…
The 2025 Bondi Beach mass-shooting was perpetrated by individuals inspired by ISIS (Islamic State) propaganda that increasingly featured anti-Semitic hate content following the October 2023 start of the Israel-Palestine war. Similar stories…
Is demand for conspiracy theories online linked to real-world hate crimes? By analyzing online search trends for 36 racially and politically-charged conspiracy theories in Michigan (2015-2019), we employ a one-dimensional convolutional…
User-generated content online is shaped by many factors, including endogenous elements such as platform affordances and norms, as well as exogenous elements, in particular significant events. These impact what users say, how they say it,…
Social media conversations frequently suffer from toxicity, creating significant issues for users, moderators, and entire communities. Events in the real world, like elections or conflicts, can initiate and escalate toxic behavior online.…
The presidential elections in the United States on 3 November 2020 have caused extensive discussions on social media. A part of the content on US elections is organic, coming from users discussing their opinions of the candidates, political…
The sudden emergence of large-scale riots in otherwise unconnected cities across the UK in summer 2024 came as a shock for both government officials and citizens. Irrespective of these riots' specific trigger, a key question is how the…
Online hate speech has caught everyone's attention from the news related to the COVID-19 pandemic, US elections, and worldwide protests. Online toxicity - an umbrella term for online hateful behavior, manifests itself in forms such as…