Fanning the Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime
Abstract
This paper investigates the link between social media and hate crime. We show that antirefugee sentiment on Facebook predicts crimes against refugees in otherwise similar municipalities with higher social media usage. To establish causality, we exploit exogenous variation in the timing of major Facebook and internet outages. Consistent with a role for “echo chambers,” we find that right-wing social media posts contain narrower and more loaded content than news reports. Our results suggest that social media can act as a propagation mechanism for violent crimes by enabling the spread of extreme viewpoints.
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Common causal inference techniques used in the sample include instrumental variable designs, matching approaches, and panel designs.
“Common causal inference techniques that were used in our sample include instrumental variable designs that introduce exogenous variation in the treatment variable59–63, matching approaches to explicitly balance treatment and control groups64–66, and panel designs that account for unobserved confounders with unit and/or time-fixed effects67,68.”
From A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy (2022) · cites this paper as [68]
There was causal evidence that digital media can propagate ethnic hate crimes in both democratic and authoritarian countries.
“and there was causal evidence that digital media can propagate ethnic hate crimes in both democratic and authoritarian countries62,68.”
From A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy (2022) · cites this paper as [68]
Cites
The spreading of misinformation online
Del Vicario, M., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Petroni, F., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., Stanley, H. E., & Quattrociocchi, W. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1517441113 · Cited by 2,407 · see citing works
Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence From Russia
Enikolopov, R., Makarin, A., & Petrova, M. (2020) · Econometrica · doi:10.3982/ecta14281 · Cited by 489 · see citing works
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A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy
Lorenz-Spreen, P., Oswald, L., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2022) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-022-01460-1 · Cited by 348 · see citing works
Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation
Budak, C., Nyhan, B., Rothschild, D. M., Thorson, E., & Watts, D. J. (2024) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07417-w · Cited by 156 · see citing works
Empathy-based counterspeech can reduce racist hate speech in a social media field experiment
Hangartner, D., Gennaro, G., Alasiri, S., Bahrich, N., Bornhoft, A., Boucher, J., Demirci, B. B., Derksen, L., Hall, A., Jochum, M., et al. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2116310118 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
The Welfare Effects of Social Media
Allcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2019) · doi:10.3386/w25514 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
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Ranking for engagement: How social media algorithms fuel misinformation and polarization
Germano, F., Gómez, V., & Sobbrio, F. (2026) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2026.105589 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Müller, K., & Schwarz, C.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Bocconi University (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Müller, Karsten
- Schwarz, Carlo
- Venue
- Journal of the European Economic Association
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2020-10-30
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 2131-2167
- ISSN
- 1542-4766 (ISSN-L)
- 1542-4774
- OpenAlex
- W3122907670
- Cited by
- 448
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 61 · 2025: 74 · 2024: 82 · 2023: 98 · 2022: 71 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 3 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 195.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- Journal of the European Economic Association (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della Ricerca - Bocconi (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- ESRC
- Leverhulme Trust
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- social media, hate crimes, Facebook, internet outages, echo chambers, violent crime, refugees, online hate speech
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