# Spread of hate speech in online social media

## TL;DR

This study analyzes how hate speech spreads on social media, revealing that hateful content propagates more extensively and quickly, with hateful users being more influential and interconnected.

## Contribution

First comprehensive analysis of hate speech diffusion dynamics on Gab, highlighting differences in spread, influence, and network cohesion between hateful and non-hateful users.

## Key findings

- Hateful content diffuses farther, wider, and faster than non-hateful content.
- Hateful users are more influential, popular, and cohesive.
- Hate speech has a broader outreach on social media.

## Abstract

The present online social media platform is afflicted with several issues, with hate speech being on the predominant forefront. The prevalence of online hate speech has fueled horrific real-world hate-crime such as the mass-genocide of Rohingya Muslims, communal violence in Colombo and the recent massacre in the Pittsburgh synagogue. Consequently, It is imperative to understand the diffusion of such hateful content in an online setting. We conduct the first study that analyses the flow and dynamics of posts generated by hateful and non-hateful users on Gab (gab.com) over a massive dataset of 341K users and 21M posts. Our observations confirms that hateful content diffuse farther, wider and faster and have a greater outreach than those of non-hateful users. A deeper inspection into the profiles and network of hateful and non-hateful users reveals that the former are more influential, popular and cohesive. Thus, our research explores the interesting facets of diffusion dynamics of hateful users and broadens our understanding of hate speech in the online world.