Arcila Calderón, C., Sánchez Holgado, P., Gómez, J. et al. (2024). From online hate speech to offline hate crime: the role of inflammatory language in forecasting violence against migrant and LGBT communities. Humanities and Social Sciences Communicati

Country

Spain

Title

Arcila Calderón, C., Sánchez Holgado, P., Gómez, J. et al. (2024). From online hate speech to offline hate crime: the role of inflammatory language in forecasting violence against migrant and LGBT communities. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11, Article number 1369.

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Year

2024

Publication type

Research evidence/report

Geographical coverage

National

Area/location of interest

Not applicable - national level

Type of Institution

Academic/research institution

Institution

Spain, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Journal.

Thematic focus

Hate speech: Public incitement to hatred or violence

Groups

LGBTIQ people

Key findings

It analyses online hate speech and compares it to offline hate crime. It established a connection between social media content and criminal acts, provides scholars, authorities, and policymakers with a clear picture of how harmful online messages and haters are the breeding ground for hate crimes. Even if the vast majority of tweets or Facebook posts with inflammatory language against vulnerable groups such as migrants or LGBT people do not legally classify as hate speech or cybercrime, their emergence and propagation might follow regulatory patterns similar to those of online crimes related to children or terrorism. It highlighted the far-reaching influence of virtual interactions, which transcend the online environment and are interconnected with human behaviour offline, so the virtual interactions may serve as an early indicator of an increase in hate crimes.

Methodology (Qualitative/Quantitative and exact type used, questionnaires etc)

Qualitative research

Sample details and representativeness

The dataset for this preregistered study included social media posts from X (previously called Twitter) and Facebook and internal police records of hate crimes reported in Spain between 2016 and 2018. After conducting preliminary data analysis to check the moderate temporal correlation, we used time series analysis to develop computational models (VAR, GLMNet, and XGBTree) to predict four time periods of these rare events on a daily and weekly basis. Forty-eight models were run to forecast two types of offline hate crimes, those against migrants and those against the LGBT community.

DISCLAIMERThe information presented here is collected under contract by the FRA's research network FRANET. The information and views contained do not necessarily reflect the views or the official position of the FRA.