Online Verbal Aggression as a Catalyst for Hate and Violence

While hate speech predates the digital age and has long been a tool for stereotype reinforcement, dehumanization, marginalization, and incitement to hostility and violence, its digital manifestation has significantly amplified its reach and impact. Taking Greece as a case study, we present a large-scale yet fine-grained analysis of online verbal aggression (VA) targeting key groups: Albanians and Pakistanis (the most multitudinous nationalities of migrant population living in Greece), Muslims and Jews (significant religious and ethnic minorities bearing frequent attacks), and both statuses of foreign population (migrants and refugees). Following a linguistically-driven computational framework we analyze over 4 million tweets posted on Greek X (formerly Twitter) between 2015 and 2022, a period marked by a series of socio-economic crises, including the economic, refugee, and pandemic crises. The quantitative analysis of different types of verbal attacks (i.e. criticism, swearing, irony, ousting, calls for physical abuse) provides insights into the levels and fluctuations of VA targeting specific groups across the examined period. The qualitative analysis of the different types and the content of the verbal attacks provides evidence of long-standing stereotypes and prejudices deeply rooted in Greek society, and reveals narratives on which the rhetoric of hatred against specific groups in Greece is based. Our mixed-method analysis highlights key linguistic patterns that amplify hate ideologies and aggression in Greek online discourse by reinforcing populist reflexes, hostility and polarisation, as well as the contexts and events that trigger and exacerbate such forms of expressiveness. Reflecting real-world grievances and the pulse of xenophobic sentiments, our findings shed light on societal tensions underlying digital hate speech and provide a framework for exploring the complex relationship between online VA and offline political violence, particularly in times of crises.