A Comparative Study of Online Disinformation and Offline Protests

TL;DR

This study investigates how online disinformation influences offline protests across 125 countries, revealing complex effects mediated by polarization and varying by country type, with implications for policy measures.

Contribution

It models the impact of online disinformation on offline protests using Bayesian regression, highlighting the mediating role of polarization and differences across country groups.

Findings

Online disinformation correlates with increased protests.

Internet shutdowns tend to reduce protest counts.

Governmental online monitoring effects are complex and sometimes counterintuitive.

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effect of online disinformation upon offline political protests with a time series cross-sectional sample of 125 countries in a period between 2000 and 2019. The results are mixed. Based on Bayesian multi-level regression modeling, (i) there indeed is an effect between online disinformation and offline protests, but the effect is partially meditated by political polarization. The results are clearer in a sample of countries belonging to the European Economic Area. With this sample, (ii) offline protest counts increase from online disinformation disseminated by domestic governments, political parties, and politicians as well as by foreign governments. Furthermore, (iii) Internet shutdowns tend to decrease the counts, although, paradoxically, the absence of governmental online monitoring of social media tends to also decrease these. With these results, the paper contributes to the blossoming disinformation research by modeling the impact of disinformation upon offline phenomenon. The contribution is important due to the various policy measures planned or already enacted.