The Geography of Hate

[T-Rexx]

Fascinating data collected from Twitter by Humboldt State University:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...ism-homophobia

[palbert]

Statistical confirmation of what had heretofore been chiefly anecdotal.

Thanks for the post and link.

[JPGhost]

Makes me wanna fabreze that red cloud..

begone...!

[eastofeden]

I have never been on twitter...no interest....but I wonder how many of the people who twitter that crap would say that to your face...or anyone's face? ...and how many are closeted homosexuals or bisexuals who hate themselves and think projecting it outward will solve everything?

Then again...I just saw the Maury Povich show the other day by accident (and it was like watching an accident...is Jerry Springer still around?)...I was under the impression that those shows were long gone for some reason...and the audience is really quite scary. It explained alot though...now I know where the slut shamers come from and also it might explain the twitter hate.

[kayman23]

Are we truly surprised? I'm looking at the geography of not only homophobia but racism, they it is widespread. We live in a society where people need to get over themselves and let others live their lives especially if they haven't done anything to them personally...

[gsdx]

Then again...I just saw the Maury Povich show the other day by accident (and it was like watching an accident...is Jerry Springer still around?)

There's a great lesson in those types of shows: violence is the answer to everything, and it must be applauded and cheered.

I don't watch them, either by accident or intentionally. I can't even make it through a promo or a teaser without shaking my head.

[jaysizzles]

The initial graphic that you see when you first click the link, with all that red, is really kind of deceiving. Zoom in and suddenly all the big red blotches become way more isolated. If they allowed you to zoom in completely, you could probably find the house that the negative tweets are coming from. idk...that graphic seems kind of sensationalized imo. I was surprised that the larger cities, like NYC & LA, weren't hot spots tho.

I'd also like to see a study made on the geography of hate speech posted by yahoo message board users...they're the worst.

Isn't it interesting tho that the study had access to and was able to compile those words from tweets...it reminds me, on a small scale, of the premise for the show Person of Interest.

[T-Rexx]

The initial graphic that you see when you first click the link, with all that red, is really kind of deceiving. Zoom in and suddenly all the big red blotches become way more isolated. If they allowed you to zoom in completely, you could probably find the house that the negative tweets are coming from.

The people who collected this data aggregated it by county, so that it would not be possible to identify individuals.

idk...that graphic seems kind of sensationalized imo. I was surprised that the larger cities, like NYC & LA, weren't hot spots tho.

That is part of what makes this interesting. The data are corrected for population density (that is, the graphic shows hateful tweets per capita, not total numbers). It does not appear that big city dwellers are more hateful than rural residents (a finding that is not too surprising). I was surprised that very conservative western states which are very, very opposed to gay marriage did not seem to manifest particularly greater anti-gay hatred in their tweets.

There may be hope for America.

[nycguydowntown]

what was interesting for me is there is a town up the Hudson River---north of NYC ---called Hudson---which has a large gay community and is one of the only small towns in upstate NY that has a gay pride parade---and it has some activity near it.

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

universatys eva figa yesterday be awsum

1+1 is a wot? world universatays no rush no wanna ya assholes work toos a hard

ha

[Alistair]

I'd like to have seen some numbers added. It was really an awful small amount of tweets analyzed too. 150k, across the US? Would that even add up to an hour?

[altlover85]

what was interesting for me is there is a town up the Hudson River---north of NYC ---called Hudson---which has a large gay community and is one of the only small towns in upstate NY that has a gay pride parade---and it has some activity near it.

I grew up near there. It never really struck me as all that progressive, even though they did have the pride parade. I actually don't remember the pride parade when I was there in the early 2000's, but it may have been there and I just wasn't really knowledgeable about GLBT events back then. I certainly wasn't out at that time.

[frankfrank]

The thing that struck me really strange about the map (as I zoomed in somewhat closer), was the specificity of the terms used from place to place - like some area would show a prominent blob for "fag" (and nothing for "homo") and another area half a state away would show a prominent blob for "homo" (and nothing for "fag"). Are the regional differences in the use of these terms, really that different?

Or, in some of these cases, could it be ONE person tweeting the same derogatory term over and over and over, and almost nobody else doing likewise? One very, very busy person could probably cause a "queer" blob to appear nowhere near any other areas that show that specific term being used very much.

I was also surprised about the lack of much of anything in places like Wyoming and even Utah. Perhaps the people doing the research considered only certain population areas for tweets, and perhaps they studied NO PLACE in Wyoming at all?

In short, the map is interesting (partly because I LOVE maps), but I somehow don't think the science of the poll is valid, or at least it leaves me with questions.

[G-Lexington]

The one thing I got from the map - nobody in Montana tweets.

Lex