Beskrivning

Hate communication in online comments sections is frequent and problematic. It can affect mental health and increase polarisation.

We present our research which investigates speed of commenting and hateful communication in a dataset of 38 million comments from The Guardian Online. Our study shows that quicker comments are more likely to be hateful and that hateful communication increases the chances of more hateful communication in reply. We explain how the design of comments sections can reduce this hateful communication, and what the prospects and costs are for more civil online discussions.

Medverkande

William Hedley Thompson, Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Applied IT, Division of Cognition & Communication, University of Gothenburg

Ben Clarke, Universitetslektor, Dept. of Applied IT, Division of Cognition & Communication, University of Gothenburg