In Germany, online hate speech has real-world consequences - Daily chart

New research suggests that this digital hatred is now spilling over into the real world. A paper by Karsten Müller and Carlo Schwarz of the University of Warwick finds a strong association between right-wing, anti-refugee sentiment on German social-media sites and violent crimes against refugees. Using data from the Facebook page of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and statistics on anti-refugee incidents collected by local advocacy groups, the authors find that for every four additional Facebook posts critical of refugees, there was one additional anti-refugee incident (see chart). This relationship appears to be driven by violent crimes such as arson and assault, and cannot be explained by local social-media usage or demography.