Not All Asians are the Same: A Disaggregated Approach to Identifying Anti-Asian Racism in Social Media

TL;DR

This study disaggregates anti-Asian hate speech on social media by ethnic subgroups, revealing distinct narratives and emphasizing the need for nuanced analysis to inform targeted mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a disaggregated analytical framework for anti-Asian racism, incorporating temporal and ethnic factors using novel data collection and analysis techniques.

Findings

Distinct narratives for different Asian sub-ethnic groups

Anti-Asian messages vary significantly across ethnicities and time

Disaggregated analysis reveals nuanced patterns of hate speech

Abstract

Recent policy initiatives have acknowledged the importance of disaggregating data pertaining to diverse Asian ethnic communities to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their current status and to improve their overall well-being. However, research on anti-Asian racism has thus far fallen short of properly incorporating data disaggregation practices. Our study addresses this gap by collecting 12-month-long data from X (formerly known as Twitter) that contain diverse sub-ethnic group representations within Asian communities. In this dataset, we break down anti-Asian toxic messages based on both temporal and ethnic factors and conduct a series of comparative analyses of toxic messages, targeting different ethnic groups. Using temporal persistence analysis, $n$-gram-based correspondence analysis, and topic modeling, this study provides compelling evidence that anti-Asian messages comprise various distinctive narratives. Certain messages targeting sub-ethnic Asian groups entail different topics that distinguish them from those targeting Asians in a generic manner or those aimed at major ethnic groups, such as Chinese and Indian. By introducing several techniques that facilitate comparisons of online anti-Asian hate towards diverse ethnic communities, this study highlights the importance of taking a nuanced and disaggregated approach for understanding racial hatred to formulate effective mitigation strategies.