Too hot or too cold increases ``hate speech on the internet''
A climate that is too hot or too cold is unpleasant for many people, and at times can lead to irritability and verbal aggression. A new study showed that the effects of temperature spread not only in the real world but also on the Internet, and the result was that 'hate speech increases on Twitter when it is too hot or too cold.'
Temperature impacts on hate speech online: evidence from 4 billion geolocated tweets from the USA - The Lancet Planetary Health
AI-based research reveals that extreme temperatures fuel online hate speech
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-ai-based-reveals-extreme-temperatures-fuel.html
Extreme Weather Can Lead To More Online Hate Speech: Study | Time
https://time.com/6211832/extreme-weather-twitter-hate-speech/
A research team led by Leonie Wenz of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research collected more than 4 billion tweets posted to Twitter from the United States between May 2014 and May 2020, and used AI to identify 'hate speech'. was extracted. Hate speech is defined as 'attacking individuals or groups based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, skin color, ancestry, gender, or other identity, or using derogatory or discriminatory language. It is said that it was defined as 'to do'.
After extraction work, a total of 75 million tweets (about 2% of the total) were certified as hate speech. The research team then classified each tweet based on where it originated in the United States, and analyzed factors such as temperature on the date of posting, socioeconomic conditions by region, religion, and the results of the 2016 US presidential election. was carried out.
As a result of the analysis, there was no tendency for specific cities to generate more hate speech than other cities, but it was found that ``temperature on the day of tweeting'' was significantly related to the amount of hate speech. Did. The range with the least hate speech was 15 to 18 degrees Celsius, and the surrounding range of 12 to 21 degrees Celsius was a 'sweet spot' with little hate speech. However, there was a tendency for hate speech to increase markedly outside this sweet spot.
The image below shows the ``increase and decrease in hate speech due to temperature'' based on the graph above, which is 15 to 18 degrees Celsius, where hate speech is the least. The graph below shows the climate zones of the United States as 'Cold climate', 'Hot-dry climate', 'Hot-humid climate' and 'Marine climate' It is classified into 'Mixed-humid climate' and shows the maximum temperature of each climate.
Compared to days with a maximum temperature of 15 to 18 degrees Celsius, the research team found that hate speech increased by 12.5% on extremely cold days with a maximum temperature of -6 to -3 degrees Celsius, and an extremely cold day with a maximum temperature of 42 to 45 degrees Celsius. reported an increase of more than 22% on hot days.
In addition, when we classified the climate zones of the United States into five and analyzed them, we found that in cold regions, there was little increase in hate speech due to temperatures that were too low, and in hot regions, there was little increase in hate speech due to temperatures that were too hot. This suggests that the increase in hate speech is related to 'temperatures to which people are accustomed,' and to some extent they are adapting to the climate of where they live. However, when the temperature exceeded 30 degrees, hate speech increased regardless of the climate zone or region.
'Even in high-income areas where people can afford heat mitigation options such as air conditioning, hate speech increases on very hot days,' said Anders Levermann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He argued that there may be limits to adaptation to temperature changes.
In this research, we also know that hate speech is often targeted at black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ people. “Being the target of online hate speech poses a serious threat to people's mental health,” said co-author Annika Stechemesser. It is said that it may worsen the mental health of the affected population.'
“Our findings highlight online hate speech as a new pathway by which climate change is impacting the cohesion of society as a whole and the mental health of people,” said Wenz. Curbing the global warming quickly and significantly will not only benefit the outside world, but protecting the climate from excessive warming is also important for mental health.' .
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