Political abuse on X is a global, widespread and cross-partisan phenomenon, says study

A study suggests that political abuse is a key feature of political communication on the social media platform, “X,” and whether on the political left or right, it is just as common to see politically engaged users abusing their political opponents, to a similar degree, and with little room for moderates.

The study was published in the journal, Nature Communications.

While previous research into such online abuse has typically focused on the U.S., the current study found that abuse followed a common ally-enemy structure across the nine countries for which there was available data: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, UK, and the U.S..

Led by City, St George’s, University of London, in collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute and others, the study suggests that individuals who deviate from their party norms are quickly treated as if they are a political enemy.

Such “outlier” individuals highlighted by the study include US politicians Liz Cheney and Tulsi Gabbard.

Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman in the US, broke ranks with her party, choosing to support the impeachment of Donald Trump for the January 6, 2021 storming of the US capitol.

Gabbard, originally a representative for the Democrats, defected to the Republicans very shortly after the current study was completed.

Similarly, in the UK, the study found that former pro-European Conservative party politicians such as Anna Soubry were endorsed by partisans (a person who strongly supports a political party) on the political left, and attacked by partisans on the political right.

In the study, the researchers used a complete data sample of X (then called Twitter) users posts, comprising 375 million tweets over a 24-hour period in September 2022. They mapped the posts of these users to another sample of over 1,800 politicians who have an active X account.

By observing which users retweeted which politicians, the researchers were able to estimate what the political leaning of each user was, either to the left or right.

They also measured the toxicity of the content of political posts to measure political abuse on X.

The study found that posts which mentioned political opponents were consistently more toxic than mentions of political allies. While political interactions, in general, were more toxic than non-political interactions in all the countries with available data.

While much attention has been given to social media facilitating the formation of ‘echo chambers,” where individuals are only exposed to similar content, this study highlights the other side: X also enables communication across political groups, but the nature of this communication is often abusive.

The type of abuse aimed at political opponents which the study analyzed is sometimes called “affective polarization,” the phenomenon where partisans have negative feelings and emotions towards members of opposing political parties.

First author of the study, Dr. Max Falkenberg, currently at the Department of Network & Data Science, Central European University, said, “Many of these trends may have worsened. Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and the restrictions on data introduced, we no longer have access to the high quality data required to study these issues. This lack of transparency is democratically problematic and of significant concern if we are to improve the quality of political communication online.”

Andrea Baronchelli, Professor of Mathematics at City, St George’s, University of London, and who led the project, said, “Our research reveals a key appeal of large platforms like X/Twitter: the chance to engage in aggressive exchanges with political opponents—unlike smaller platforms that simply allow conversations among like-minded users.

“This work confirms that the trend spans across countries, suggesting a society where the ‘other’ is viewed only as an opponent, and listening is reserved for allies. Recognizing the implications for democratic life, our team will continue to study its broader impacts.”