Misogynistic Language on Twitter and Sexual Violence
Rachael Fulper, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, Emilio Ferrara, 1 YongYeol Ahn, Alessandro Flammini, Filippo Menczer
Abstract
Studies have demonstrated that social media may offer insights into social behaviors. Here we investigate the potential of social media in predicting criminal behavior, in particular rape and sexual abuse. Traditional approaches for studying sexual violence are effective but laborious, although often limited to small sample sizes and coarse temporal resolutions. Additionally, the sensitive nature of sexual violence and stigmas against victims result in serious underreporting ofrapecrimestatistics. Thefactorscontributingtorapearenot fullyagreedupon, but researchshowsthat theacceptanceof,andwillingnessto commit rapearehighlycorrelatedwithsexrolestereotyping,rapemythbeliefs,andmisogyny.Hereweexplorewhethersocial mediacanbeusedasanindicatorofsexualviolenceintheUS,bytrackingmisogynistictweets.Wecomparedthenumberof tweetsandrapecrimestatisticsforeachstate,andfoundasignificantassociation.Ourworkpavesthewaytothedesignofa ‘social sensor’ system to detect rape and other abuse by monitoring social streams.
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kayo
12/12/2025
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- acceptance of & willingness to commit rape are highly correlated w/ sex-role stereotyping, rape myth beliefs, & misogyny - sig association b/w # of misogynistic tweets & rape crime statistics for each state