US Political Violence in Context and Social Media
Is political violence actually increasing in the US? What role does social media play in any increase in political violence?
A decade ago, a radio show host asked me whether the political violence seen in other politically polarized countries could make its way to the US. I said ”absolutely,” and hoped I was wrong. Some of the other panelists laughed and dismissed my statement as alarmism; it wasn’t.
In my last post, I shared some recent data showing:
The number of people facing federal charges for threatening violence against public officials increased dramatically in 2017, and has more than tripled since 2013.
The percentage of US adults condoning the use of violence to accomplish their political aims increased 53% from 2021 to 2023.
But, I started wondering 3 things:
How do these numbers compare to other times in American history?
How do these numbers compare to those observed in other countries?
How does social media play into all of this?
As a researcher at heart, I spent the next week digging into all of the data I could find on the matter and then creating some visualizations that will help answer these questions.
How does today’s political violence in the United States compare to past years?
If we look just at violence specific to campaigns and elections, then 2020/2021 bore witness to the greatest political violence going back to 1900 (the earliest year available in these data). If we consider more general political violence that isn’t specific to a particular election, then 2021 bore witness to the greatest levels of political violence since the 1910s!
How does the level of political violence in the US compare to all other countries throughout history?
Using the Varieties of Democracy data, which is based on the assessments of more than 4000 subject matter experts from 100+ countries, I created the following bar chart race video. In this video, you’ll see that countries tend to have more political violence during periods of economic struggle and political transition. The United States entered the Top 20 for 3 years in the 1910s, and didn't return until a short stint in 2021 before being overtaken by a number of African and Middle Eastern nations in the midst of civil wars, revolutions, or deep unrest.
What role, if any, does social media play in the rise of violence in the United States?
There is less data on this question, but the Digital Society Survey uses a similar subject-matter expert method as the Varieties of Democracy project does. In this case, the subject matter experts were asked to assess, “How often do people use social media to organize offline violence?” As social media has only been around a couple of decades, the data are limited to 2000-2023. Not surprisingly, the countries with the highest rates of people using social media to organize offline violence are also the countries with the highest rates of political violence. The United States is not in the top 20 countries where using social media to organize offline violence… until 2021. In 2023 (the last year where the data are available), the United States has the 8th highest rate out of 179 countries. The US has a slightly higher rate of people using social media to organize offline violence than Syria does, but not quite as high as Afghanistan.
If we narrow the number of countries just to the Top 5 Wealthiest Countries by GDP, we see that the United States is not particularly high. Then, as President Obama’s second term wore on and social media became more easily accessible with the growing prevalence of smartphones, we see an uptick. By 2023, the United States has the highest rate of people using social media to organize offline violence of the top 5 wealthiest countries (at least based on the expert evaluations from those working on behalf of the Digital Society Survey).
These data tell a consistent story. Political violence in the US typically has been rare, but has become less rare over the past decade. While I am relying on subject matter expert coded data and not actual charges, police reports, or survey data, the pattern in those data map well to the crime and survey data reported in my last post. Now, if only we had behavioral data from these social media platforms that we could analyze...
What’s in the pipeline?
I launched a YouTube channel to accompany my written content here. To date, the channel mostly has animated visualizations of data I’ve analyzed related to the topics I’ve written about. I’ll eventually share some longer form thought pieces / short documentaries, too. Please do subscribe. :-)
I published my latest analyses of the Neely Social Media Index. This report does a deep dive into whether people’s likelihood of having meaningful connections with other people on social media over a 15 month period where many of these platforms have launched AI chatbots.
I finished analyzing the Neely Social Media Index data from Poland and drafted a summary report. The post should be live very soon. If you’re interested in partnering with the Neely Center and collecting data on social media experiences in another country, please do let me know.
I submitted our op-ed on the need for meaningful transparency from big tech companies to MIT Technology Review.
As part of the Platform Data handbook I’m building with some colleagues, we are including a databrary containing links to all of the publicly available social media data we can find. It’s a work in progress, but should give you a taste of what is to come in the following weeks. If you know of data that we haven’t yet included, please message or email me.
What I’m reading
The teens lobbying against the Kids Online Safety Act -- Lauren Feiner, The Verge
The KOSA internet censorship bill just passed the Senate -- It’s our last chance to stop it -- Joe Mullin, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Texas AG wins $1.4B settlement from Facebook-parent Meta over facial-capture charges -- Rob Wile, NBA News
Elon Musk posts deepfake of Kamala Harris that violates X policy, Lauren Feiner, The Verge
Google’s exclusive Reddit access -- Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media
Reddit changes have blocked all search engines except Google amid AI ‘misuse’ -- Ben Schoon, 9to5Google
EU threatens to sue Meta for saying Facebook is ‘free’ -- Wes Davis, The Verge
It turns out Mark Zuckerberg does have a breaking point with spending on Meta’s metaverse ambitions -- Sarah Jackson, Business Insider
Historian explores how polarization and division leads to political violence -- Judy Woodruff & Kevin Boyle, PBS News Hour
Meta’s Oversight Board is unprepared for a historic 2024 election cycle -- Darrell West & Natasha White, Brookings
Child online safety law clears the US Senate, but faces uncertainty in the House -- Gabby Miller, Tech Policy Press
Researchers consider the impact of Meta’s CrowdTangle shutdown -- Prithvi Iyer, Tech Policy Press
How AI can make us as smart as fish (or bees) -- Lena Slachmuijder, Council on Tech and Social Cohesion
Extreme partisan violence lowers in-group support for partisan violence and increases group unity (PDF) -- Derek Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, & Sean Westwood
Populist attitudes, conspiracy beliefs, and the justification of political violence at the US 2020 Elections -- Sebastian Jungkunz, Political Studies
There is no evidence that time spent on social media is correlated with adolescent mental health problems: Findings from a meta-analysis (PDF) -- Christopher Ferguson et al., Professional Psychology: Research and Practice