Twitter-based map shows most hateful areas in US
May 23, 2013, 5:00 AM | Updated: 6:10 am
PHOENIX — A new map claims there is a lot of hate in some parts of the country.
The map was created by Humboldt State University researchers through the use of a program called DOLLY, which maps geography according to social media.
Researchers looked at tweets sent between June 2012 and April 2013 that contained certain words that may be considered offensive. There were a lot of them.
“They said that it was 150,000 insults aggregated over those months, said Arizona State University Digital Director Robin Phillips.
Researchers used the data to create a color-coded map of the U.S., with red indicating areas where a lot of the hate tweets originated.
“The red parts are very red and angry looking and they are primarily in the east and the southeast,” Phillips said.
Phillips said that people must be pretty nice in Arizona. The state was among those with the least amount of hate tweets but two areas were worse than others.
“A little bit more of the negative tweets were in Yuma and Tucson,” he said.
One area where much of Arizona does show up in the red category is in the number of tweets that include the word “queer.”
Phillips noted Arizona may have done better because it wasn’t a state that was in play during last year’s divisive presidential election.