"Our results allow us to provide a rough estimate of how many attacks against refugees would
have taken place in a counter-factual world without right-wing social media posts. Given
that the variables in our study are subject to measurement error, this calculation should be
interpreted as an illustration, rather than a precise exercise. We leave a more quantitatively
credible estimate for future research based on controlled experimental settings.
We calculate the predicted values of attacks if there where 0 anti-refugee posts on the
AfD’s Facebook page based on the conservative estimated coefficient of 14.742 in the regression
with county × week fixed effects. Multiplying with the coefficient with the AfDusers/P op.
and Refugeeposts gives us the estimated effect on the ratio of refugee attacks to asylum
seekers. Again multiplying with the number of asylum seekers, then, is the predicted number
of attacks due to right-wing social media salience. Our results imply that in the absence of
anti-refugee posts on the AfD Facebook page 437 (13%) fewer anti-refugee incidents would
have taken place. This back-of-the-envelope calculation further illustrates the non-negligible
impact of social media."
