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Researchers from the University of Gothenburg have analysed all deleted comments from The Guardian's website between 2006 and 2024, which was 1 million out of a total of 38 million. The results show that hateful comments are posted more quickly than those that are not hateful. This means that the first comments in a thread more often contain hateful language, written in the heat of the moment.
“We conducted a time study of when the comments were written in relation to the publication of the article, or in relation to a comment to which they were a direct response,” says William Hedley Thompson, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg.
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Portrait image of Ben Clarke
Ben Clarke, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Applied Information Technology at the University of Gothenburg.
Photo: Gunnar Jönsson
The researchers also found that if a comment contained hateful content, the likelihood of more hateful comments appearing in the same thread increased. The level of discussion is set by the first comment, and then more readers feel compelled to quickly follow suit.
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Correlation vs Causation here? Articles can deliver different messages and be of different quality.
I don't think they're suggesting that posting an article causes hate comments, no.