Real-world events trigger online hate toward unrelated groups, study finds

The death of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests triggered not only a huge rise in race-related hate speech but also a broader wave of abuse. Photograph: Michael Kemp/Alamy

Real-world events such as murders and political protests can trigger an increase in online hate speech directed against seemingly unrelated groups. The finding could help online moderators better predict when hateful content is most likely to be published, and what they should be looking out for, researchers say.

Previous research has connected offline events to subsequent spikes in hate speech and violent hate crimes, but these studies have largely focused on moderated platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook (now Meta), which have policies to identify and remove this kind of content.