Clicks, comments, consequences: Are content creators' socio-structural and platform characteristics shaping the exposure to negative sentiment, offensive language, and hate speech on YouTube?

• Main Authors: Weißmann, Sarah, Philipp, Aaron, Verwiebe, Roland, Krauter, Chiara Osorio, Fritsch, Nina-Sophie, Buder, Claudia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 10.04.2025
• Subjects: Computer Science - Computers and Society
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2504.07676

Receiving negative sentiment, offensive comments, or even hate speech is a constant part of the working experience of content creators (CCs) on YouTube - a growing occupational group in the platform economy. This study investigates how socio-structural characteristics such as the age, gender, and race of CCs but also platform features including the number of subscribers, community strength, and the channel topic shape differences in the occurrence of these phenomena on that platform. Drawing on a random sample of n=3,695 YouTube channels from German-speaking countries, we conduct a comprehensive analysis combining digital trace data, enhanced with hand-coded variables to include socio-structural characteristics in social media data. Publicly visible negative sentiment, offensive language, and hate speech are detected with machine- and deep-learning methods using N=40,000,000 comments. Contrary to existing studies our findings indicate that female content creators are confronted with less negative communication. Notably, our analysis reveals that while BIPoC, who work as CCs, receive significantly more negative sentiment, they aren't exposed to more offensive comments or hate speech. Additionally, platform characteristics also play a crucial role, as channels publishing content on conspiracy theories or politics are more frequently subject to negative communication.