Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics
No 1350: Misogynistic and Xenophobic Hate Language Online: A Matter of Anonymity
Emma von Essen and Joakim Jansson ()
Additional contact information
Emma von Essen: Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Postal: and Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University, Denmark
Joakim Jansson: Department of Economics and Statistics, Linnaeus University, Postal: and Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract: In this paper, we quantify hateful content in online civic discussions of politics and estimate the causal link between hateful content and writer anonymity. To measure hate, we first develop a supervised machine-learning model that predicts hate against foreign residents and hate against women on a dominant Swedish Internet discussion forum. We find that an exogenous decrease in writer anonymity leads to less hate against foreign residents but an increase in hate against women. We conjecture that the mechanisms behind the changes comprise a combination of users decreasing the amount of their hateful writing and a substitution of hate against foreign residents for hate against women. The discussion of the results highlights the role of social repercussions in discouraging antisocial and criminal activities.
Keywords: Online hate; Anonymity; Discussion forum; Machine learning; Big data
Language: English
76 pages, August 14, 2020
Full text files
wp1350.pdfFull text
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Elisabeth Gustafsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:12:21.