The Impact of Politicians’ Behaviors on Hate Speech Diffusion on Twitter

• In Event: Evolving Legal Norms Regarding Hate Speech in Japan

Abstract

In recent years, a number of hate speech has increased in major online space, in particular social network service, such as Twitter.
What is the mechanism behind the emergence and the spread of hate speech in short period? In this study, we examine the effect of the behavior of a public figure with social/political power and an international event on spreading racist harassment in the online discourse. More concretely, we demonstrate that how it changes the average level of hate speech threshold of users in Twitter. That is the minimum number of sources (i.e., friends who publish hate speech posts), which enable one to publish a hate speech post.
This study is interested in the diffusion of hate speech behavior, which takes place in interaction of individuals. It is reasonable to assume that the hate speech behavior spreads through complex contagions which require multiple sources of contact. This is due to specific characteristics of hate speech: socially undesirable act. In other words, hate speech behavior is accompanied by social cost such as disrespect, contempt, and refusal from others. It has been suggested that when collective behaviors are costly, risky, or controversial, the willingness to participate may require independent affirmation or reinforcement from multiple sources. Since hate speech is socially unacceptable behavior, it is more likely to spread based on complex contagions which require affirmation from multiple sources.
Previous literature has suggested two prominent factors fomenting online harassment: weakened social norm and majority of the opinion. Previous studies pointed out that social norms are primal factor to prevent people from expressing unfair prejudices. Additionally, people who conceive their opinion being minority tend to refrain from expressing their opinion. Given the studies, online racist harassment can spread when people conceive that social norms are weakened and majority of people support the idea.
We model this process by focusing on the factors changing the adoption thresholds for hate speech, i.e., the minimum number of the source required to express hate. When prominent public figures, such as leading politicians, show gesture supporting hate speech, individuals can consider that social norms against hate speeches are weakened. This could lead to lower adoption thresholds for hate. Similarly, level of adoption thresholds can be changed by public opinion about the hate speech at the time. As suggested above, behavior of actors are influenced by their assessment of majority opinion or opinion climate. It is more likely that actors perceive more public support the content of the hate speech (or have negative opinion toward the subject of the hate speech), and therefore threshold to publish/disseminate hate speech will be lower.
To test the above ideas, this study focuses on racist hate speech toward Korean in Japanese Twitter. In Japan, some right-wing extremists, so called “Neto-uyo” (it means online right-wings in Japanese), have tried to spread racist harassment toward North/South Korean in online space. Twitter is one of the most popular online communication tools in Japan, and the right-wing groups are active in the space as well. Retweet network among hate speech users in Twitter will be used to measure adoption threshold for hate speech.
Concerning the social norm, we focus on the behavior of Yuriko Koike, the Governor of Tokyo. On 25th August, major media started to report her announcement that she is not going to send her memorial address to the annual memorial ceremony for the victims of massacre in 1923 targeting Korean residents right after the Great Kanto Earthquake. Her decision was not only unexpected but also quite surprising since the prior governors of Tokyo have sent memorial addresses to the ceremony every year. The extreme conservatives welcome her decision since they claimed that the number of victim is exaggerated or that the tragedy was fictional. The governor did not explicitly mentioned that she supports the claims of the extremists, but it is highly plausible that the extremists took her decision into account as supporting their ideas. Concerning the opinion climate, we focus on the missile launch in North Korea. North Korea launched missile over Japan on 29th August. Not only the Japanese government but also most of media conceived the event as serious threat to Japan. It is highly plausible to think that the event create negative public opinion in particular North Korea, but also the whole Korea including South Korea.
The study demonstrates that Koike’s behavior, powerful politician’s behavior, have impact on lowering the average level of hate speech threshold, suggesting that it leads to hate speech spread to more large public.

Authors

• Taehee Kim, University of Oldenburg

• Yuki Ogawa, Retsumeikan University