Monitoring Targeted Hate in Online Environments

Abstract

Hateful comments, swearwords and sometimes even death threats are becoming a reality for many people today in online environments. This is especially true for journalists, politicians, artists, and other public figures. This paper describes how hate directed towards individuals can be measured in online environments using a simple dictionary-based approach. We present a case study on Swedish politicians, and use examples from this study to discuss shortcomings of the proposed dictionary-based approach. We also outline possibilities for potential refinements of the proposed approach.