从话题标签到仇恨犯罪：推特与反少数群体情绪

中文摘要

我们以唐纳德·特朗普的政治崛起为重点，研究社交媒体能否放大反少数群体情绪。采用一种基于2007年西南偏南音乐节推特早期用户的工具变量策略，我们发现，在2016年总统初选后，县级推特使用率越高，反穆斯林仇恨犯罪的增幅越大，且幅度可观。特朗普发布的涉穆斯林推文能够预测其关注者在随后数日发布的排外推文、有线电视新闻对穆斯林的提及以及仇恨犯罪的增加。这些结果表明，社交媒体内容能够影响现实生活中的结果。（JEL D72、J15、K42、L82、Z12）

Abstract

We study whether social media can amplify antiminority sentiment with a focus on Donald Trump’s political rise. Using an instrumental variable strategy based on Twitter’s early adopters at the South by Southwest festival in 2007, we find that higher Twitter use in a county is associated with a sizeable increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes after the 2016 presidential primaries. Trump’s tweets about Muslims predict increases in xenophobic tweets by his followers, cable news mentions of Muslims, and hate crimes on the following days. These results suggest that social media content can affect real-life out-comes. (JEL D72, J15, K42, L82, Z12)