Social Media Users' Reactions to Posts about Undocumented Immigration in the U.S.

Online discourse about contentious and ideological issues like undocumented immigration, trigger massive user reactions. Online hostility towards marginalized groups and its effect on them have attracted scholarly attention. However, reactions to posts on the same issue may take different sides; they may vary not only because of the specific views expressed, but also because of the perceived social roles of those who post about the issue. We examined how users' provocative comments vary among posts by the public, politicians, and immigrants. Given this controversial topic, we found that almost 85% of the 4,800 comments were provocative. We found that the prevalence and nature of these comments varied significantly between posts by the public and those by either by politicians or by immigrants; We also found significant variations between posts on Facebook and on X.