![]() Their social media campaigns led to at least 750 British youngsters joining Jihadi groups in Syria. As a prime example of cyberterrorism, the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria (ISIS) effectively used social media to recruit youngsters from Europe to participate in the Syrian conflict. These groups use images and Internet videos to communicate their hateful intent, to trigger panic, and to cause psychological harm to the general public. Moreover, social media and online forums have provided hate-driven terrorist groups a medium for launching propaganda to radicalize youth globally. Social media platforms have granted a new spirit to radical nationalist groups including Klansmen and Neo-Nazis by ensuring anonymity or pseudonymity (i.e., disguised identity), ease of discussions, and spread of radical ideologies. An example can be seen in the 2016 US elections the narrative of “Make America Great Again” has empirically been shown to have amplified the online presence of white supremacists. Online hate spreading has also emerged as a tool for politically motivated bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, and excessive nationalism. Online hate has been shown to predominantly target and influence minorities, young age groups, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) community. Among New Zealanders, for example, 11% of adults have been personally targeted by online hate, whereas, in the US, 41% of adults have experienced online hate speech and harassment. Recent estimates have placed exposure to online hate ranging from 31% to 67% across different study samples. For example, the cyberbullying among youth and student populations and subsequent links with poor mental health, depression, trauma, substance misuse, and a higher risk of suicide are well-documented. Online hate, albeit conducted in the virtual world, may have dire real-life consequences at both individual and population levels. However, in addition to these positive aspects, digital technology also provides an effective medium for spreading hateful content in the form of bigotry and hateful ideologies, as well as cyberbullying and harassment of individuals and groups on social media platforms. These opportunities span across equity in education and general access to knowledge, modes of entertainment, consumerism, and e-participation. The advent of the modern Internet opens doors to a plethora of positive opportunities for the general public. The research has implications for researchers and policymakers engaged in OHR and its associated problems for individuals and society. Moreover, we identified four main clusters of OHR: (1) Cyberbullying, (2) Sexual solicitation and intimate partner violence, (3) Deep learning and automation, and (4) Extremist and online hate groups, which highlight the cross-disciplinary and multifaceted nature of OHR as a field of research. The hotbeds of OHR focus on cyberbullying, social media platforms, co-morbid mental disorders, and profiling of aggressors and victims. This applies to a number of publications as well as citations. We also observed increased research activity post-2005, starting from more than 50 publications to more than 550 in 2018. Our results show that higher-income countries contribute most to OHR, with Western countries accounting for most of the publications, funded by North American and European funding agencies. We apply a predefined search strategy to retrieve peer-reviewed OHR and analyze the data using CiteSpace software by identifying influential papers, themes of research, and collaborating institutions. For this, we use scientometric techniques and collect research papers from the Web of Science core database published through March 2019. ![]() ![]() This research aims to investigate the growing body of online hate research (OHR) by mapping general research indices, prevalent themes of research, research hotspots, and influential stakeholders such as organizations and contributing regions. However, in addition to these positive aspects, digital technology also provides an effective medium for spreading hateful content in the form of cyberbullying, bigotry, hateful ideologies, and harassment of individuals and groups. Internet and social media participation open doors to a plethora of positive opportunities for the general public. ![]()
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