Taking the pulse of online communities around the globe on breaking, critical issues of the day.
Digital Pulse, an initiative of Digital Planet, is a platform for measuring and understanding evolving sentiments and responses, expressed online by people around the world, to breaking events globally by harnessing unstructured data. The gathering and analysis of unstructured data is conducted by Ripple Research, a Digital Planet affiliate, under our direction and guidance.
Post Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, hate speech surged. We examined antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+, racial hate. Analysis (Mar’22-Jan’23) revealed: hate speech volume increased, discourse quality worsened. Despite slight policy shift, toxicity persisted under Musk’s Twitter.
Ahead of the US midterms, Twitter analyzed trending toxic political themes. Pre-Musk, focus was countering misinformation and hate. Post-takeover, discourse quality declined, extremists emerged.
Examining 16.3M tweets (Feb-Oct ’22) from 5 nations on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, reactions shifted: positive to criticism, negativity to buyout plan, sadness on his control. Across countries, emotions followed Musk’s moves on Twitter.
How did Twitter react to the Roe v. Wade announcement from the Supreme Court? What does this mean for abortion rights in America?
Read more about our methodology here.
What patterns and insights do you see in these charts? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter @dgtl_planet
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The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
