Can social media rhetoric incite hate incidents? Evidence from Trump's “Chinese Virus” tweets

Andy Cao, Jason Lindo and Jiee Zhong

Journal of Urban Economics, 2023, vol. 137, issue C

Abstract: We investigate whether Donald Trump's "Chinese Virus" tweets contributed to the rise of anti-Asian incidents. We find that the number of incidents spiked following Trump's initial “Chinese Virus” tweets and the subsequent dramatic rise in internet search activity for the phrase. Difference-in-differences and event-study analyses leveraging spatial variation indicate that this spike in anti-Asian incidents was significantly more pronounced in counties that supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election relative to those that supported Hillary Clinton. We estimate that anti-Asian incidents spiked by approximately 4200% in Trump-supported counties compared to an increase of approximately 200% in Clinton-supported counties.

Keywords: Discrimination; Social media; Hate incidents; Trump (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Can Social Media Rhetoric Incite Hate Incidents? Evidence from Trump's "Chinese Virus" Tweets (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:137:y:2023:i:c:s0094119023000608

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2023.103590

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