Online Engagement Between Opposing Political Protest Groups via Social Media is Linked to Physical Violence of Offline Encounters

Abstract

The rise of the Internet and social media has allowed individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to communicate with one another in an open and largely unstructured way. One important question is whether the nature of online engagements between groups relates to the nature of encounters between these groups in the real world. We analyzed online conversations that occurred between members of protest groups from opposite sides of the political spectrum, obtained from Facebook event pages used to organize upcoming political protests and rallies in the United States and the United Kingdom and the occurrence of violence during these protests and rallies. Using natural language processing and text analysis, we show that increased engagement between groups online is associated with increased violence when these groups met in the real world. The level of engagement between groups taking place online is substantial, and can be characterized as negative, brief, and low in integrative complexity. These findings suggest that opposing groups may use unstructured online environments to engage with one another in hostile ways. This may reflect a worsening of relationships, in turn explaining the observed increases in physical violence offline. These findings raise questions as to whether unstructured online communication is compatible with positive intergroup contact, and highlights the role that the Internet might play in wider issues of extremism and radicalization.