Hate in the Tropics. Bolsonaro's Triumph and the Surge of Online Hate Speech in Brazil (with Diego Marino Fages)

How does the advent of new information shape societal norms and, consequently, behavior? We delve into the aftermath of Bolsonaro's triumph in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election, examining its impact on the prevalence of online hate speech. Leveraging Twitter data spanning 2017 to 2019, we employ Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to distinguish tweets containing hate speech. To precisely trace the impact of Bolsonaro's election in online expressions of hate, we adopt a difference-in-differences methodology, utilizing the election outcome as an information shock. We observed a significant surge in instances of hate speech via Twitter after the elections. This phenomenon was particularly pronounced in municipalities where Bolsonaro's support was comparatively low. These results find reinforcement in the individual-level analysis, indicating that intensive and extensive margins of individual hate speech contributed to the overall increase. We interpret these findings through the lens of a belief updating mechanism, specifically emphasizing the process of revising social norms dictating what is deemed acceptable to say (or not) in public.