Article published In:
Journal of Language Aggression and ConflictVol. 7:2 (2019) ► pp.240–268
Online hatred of women in the Incels.me forum
Linguistic analysis and automatic detection
This paper presents a study of the (now suspended) online discussion forum Incels.me and its users, involuntary celibates or incels, a virtual community of isolated men without a sexual life, who see women as the cause of their problems and often use the forum for misogynistic hate speech and other forms of incitement. Involuntary celibates have attracted media attention and concern, after a killing spree in April 2018 in Toronto, Canada. The aim of this study is to shed light on the group dynamics of the incel community, by applying mixed-methods quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyze how the users of the forum create in-group identity and how they construct major out-groups, particularly women. We investigate the vernacular used by incels, apply automatic profiling techniques to determine who they are, discuss the hate speech posted in the forum, and propose a Deep Learning system that is able to detect instances of misogyny, homophobia, and racism, with approximately 95% accuracy.
Keywords: misogyny, hate speech, social media, forensic linguistics, text analytics, text profiling
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.State-of-the-art
- 3.Methods and materials
- 3.1Aim of the study and research questions
- 3.2Materials
- 3.3Methods
- 4.Text analysis
- 4.1Quantitative analysis
- 4.1.1Keyword analysis
- 4.1.1.1Keywords top 10
- 4.1.1.2Keywords top 100
- 4.1.1.3Keywords top 1,000
- 4.1.1.4Keywords top 2,000
- 4.1.2Word combinations
- 4.1.3Hate speech
- 4.1.1Keyword analysis
- 4.2Qualitative analysis
- 4.2.1Homophobia
- 4.2.2Racism
- 4.2.3Misogyny
- 4.2.4Anti-feminism
- 4.1Quantitative analysis
- 5.Text profiling
- 5.1Quantitative Analysis
- Sentiment Analysis
- Demographic Profiling
- 5.1.1Psychological profiling
- 5.2Qualitative analysis
- 5.2.1Demographic profiling
- Gender
- Age
- Race
- 5.2.2Physical profiling
- 5.2.3Psychological profiling
- Isolation
- Inhibition
- Negativity
- Neglect
- 5.2.4Profile summary
- 5.2.1Demographic profiling
- 5.1Quantitative Analysis
- 6.Relation to violent extremism
- 6.1Group dynamics
- 6.1.1Incitement to violence
- 6.1.2Threatening
- 6.1.3Automatic detection
- 6.1Group dynamics
- 7.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
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