While Barack Obama was perhaps the first social media president of the United States, few have used the platform with such veracity and toxicity as Donald Trump. Indeed, so toxic was his presence that the platform famously banned him in 2021. Research from Stanford University highlights how Trump’s presidency coincided with a significant increase in online incivility by elected officials.

The researchers found that there was a 23% increase in online incivility from the start of the Obama administration to 2019. What’s more, the more inflammatory the tweet, the more engaging it appeared to be when measured by likes and retweets.

Rising incivility

The study is among the first to focus on instances of incivility on the platform over a period of time, and the authors are at pains to point out that the higher engagement generated by such tweets is not a good thing, not least because such engagement should not be assumed to mean people approve of the message.

“It’s likely that uncivil tweets gain large numbers of likes because they are retweeted so much and thus reach many more people,” the researchers say. “Our research suggests that the average person’s view of uncivil tweets is very different—likely much more negative—than what might be gleaned from the ‘likes’ count.”

This message doesn’t appear to get through to the politicians themselves, however, who seem to view engagement as a sign to produce more rude and incendiary tweets.

Across the board

While Trump was an obviously incendiary member of Twitter, the analysis of around 1.3 million tweets shared by members of Congress found that incivility was on the rise across the political spectrum. Indeed, the biggest rise appeared among liberal Democrats, but the researchers believe this could be partly in response to the tweets made by Trump himself, with reactions to the former President accounting for much of the rise in incivility on the platform.

The researchers state that despite the evident harm the use of uncivil language can cause, it can also help politicians draw attention to key issues, while also spurring supporters into action and even helping to raise money.

As such, they make no attempt to pass judgment on whether the trend is positive or negative, but do plan to study whether this general rise in political toxicity also extends into other sources, such as the Congressional record.