Misinformation has become increasingly prevalent in online media. Transnational misinformation, in particular, poses an increasing threat to the security and stability of modern nation-states. To this end, at least some anecdotal evidence suggests a direct relationship between misinformation and domestic acts of politically motivated violence. Yet, such claims lack systematic empirical evidence, especially as it relates to transnational misinformation. To address this, this paper analyzes the effects of transnational misinformation on several distinct forms of domestic political violence across Europe, sharpening our empirical understanding of the purported association between misinformation and political violence. This is achieved through the fusion of a fine-grained spatial-temporal dataset of confirmed instances of news-based misinformation with daily event data on incidents of political conflict. These combined data are analyzed using a variety of statistical techniques for the period covering January 2016–May 2022. Findings imply a positive association between transnational misinformation and several forms of political violence in Europe. Furthermore, this association is more reliable for civilian-to-government violence events than for violence between civilian actors. Altogether this paper accordingly provides novel and nuanced empirical evidence for the pernicious effects of transnational misinformation on political violence.

中文翻译：

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错误信息对欧洲政治动机暴力事件的影响


错误信息在网络媒体中变得越来越普遍。尤其是跨国错误信息，对现代民族国家的安全与稳定构成了越来越大的威胁。为此，至少有一些轶事证据表明错误信息与出于政治动机的家庭暴力行为之间存在直接关系。然而，此类主张缺乏系统的经验证据，尤其是与跨国错误信息相关的证据。为了解决这个问题，本文分析了跨国错误信息对欧洲几种不同形式的家庭政治暴力的影响，加深了我们对错误信息与政治暴力之间所谓关联的实证理解。这是通过将已确认的基于新闻的错误信息实例的细粒度时空数据集与政治冲突事件的日常事件数据融合来实现的。使用各种统计技术对 2016 年 1 月至 2022 年 5 月期间的这些综合数据进行分析。研究结果表明，跨国错误信息与欧洲几种形式的政治暴力之间存在正相关关系。此外，这种关联对于平民对政府的暴力事件比对于平民行为者之间的暴力更可靠。总之，本文为跨国错误信息对政治暴力的有害影响提供了新颖而细致的经验证据。