A recent study underlines that it is important to “question how climate change affects the global conflict in our societies, including in the digital space”.
by lan Wei
The change in temperatures influences the quantity of hatred speeches on Twitter, this is what a Study published on 1 er September in The Lancet Planetary Health. > Made in the United States, it shows that the number of hateful tweets is at the lowest when the temperature varies between 15 ° C and 18 ° C. The authors speak of a “well-being window”. The quantity of hatred speeches posted on this social network increases sharply when the temperature is beyond 27 ° C. It exceeds the reference level by 22 % (between 15 ° C and 18 ° C) when the maximum daily temperature is between 42 ° C and 45 ° C. The phenomenon is also observed in very cold, with an increase of 12.5 % when the thermometer drops between – 3 ° C and – 6 ° C.
To draw up this assessment, the researchers studied 75 million hateful tweets broadcast between the 1 er May 2014 and the 1 er May 2020. “We relied On the definition of the United Nations to identify these publications which fall under hatred speeches, “explains Doctor Leonie Wenz, climate economist at the Potsdam Research Institute on the effects of climate change (PIK) and co -authority of the study, namely any type of expression that attacks or uses a derogatory or discriminatory language with regard to a person or a group on the basis of identity factors, such as religion, ethnicity, nationality, the race or sex. The authors of these tweets live in 773 American cities, spread over five main climatic zones of the country.
Then, the researchers examined the way in which the change in temperatures affects the occurrence of hatred speeches by trying to neutralize the factors likely to have an impact, such as political or societal events, religion or opinion Politics.
generation of conflicts
“This study shows that we can use digital environments to obtain data on large -scale individual behaviors and analyze it,” comments David Chavalariaias, research director at CNRS and author of Toxic Data. How networks manipulate our opinions (Flammarion, 300 pages, 19 euros). For the mathematician, the result of this study “is not surprising”, especially since “the tangible and economic consequences of extreme temperatures already generate conflicts outside of social networks”. He still recognizes that these remain “a good sensor to detect that the temperature influences individual behaviors”.
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