Examining Protest as An Intervention to Reduce Online Prejudice: A Case Study of Prejudice Against Immigrants

There has been a growing concern about online users using social media to incite prejudice and hatred against other individuals or groups. While there has been research in developing automated techniques to identify online prejudice acts and hate speech, how to effectively counter online prejudice remains a societal challenge. Social protests, on the other hand, have been frequently used as an intervention for countering prejudice. However, research to date has not examined the relationship between protests and online prejudice. Using large-scale panel data collected from Twitter, we examine the changes in users’ tweeting behaviors relating to prejudice against immigrants following recent protests in the U.S. on immigration related topics. This is the first empirical study examining the effect of protests on reducing online prejudice. Our results show that there were both negative and positive changes in the measured prejudice after a protest, suggesting protest might have a mixed effect on reducing prejudice. We further identify users who are likely to change (or resist change) after a protest. This work contributes to the understanding of online prejudice and its intervention effect. The findings of this research have implications for designing targeted intervention.