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This study examines the characteristics and behaviours of accounts that propagate hate speech through their responses to articles posted on five leading digital news media in Spain on Platform X (previously Twitter). Using non-experimental quantitative research, we analysed 1345 hate-expressing messages from 173,449 user comments on content shared in five leading digital news media during January 2021. Network analysis, the Homophilic Exposure Index (HEI), regression analysis and the k-means algorithm were used to identify features that characterize accounts that disseminate low-intensity hate expressions in a coordinated manner, undermining the moderation efforts of digital news media. As a result, digital news media must develop strategies to reduce the presence of this type of expression and confront accounts that operate covertly in a coordinated manner, using Astroturfing to manipulate debates around the content published on X.
García et al. (2024) studied this question.