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. 2021 May;111(5):956-964.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2021.306154. Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Association of "#covid19" Versus "#chinesevirus" With Anti-Asian Sentiments on Twitter: March 9-23, 2020

Yulin Hswen  1 , Xiang Xu  1 , Anna Hing  1 , Jared B Hawkins  1 , John S Brownstein  1 , Gilbert C Gee  1
Affiliations

Association of "#covid19" Versus "#chinesevirus" With Anti-Asian Sentiments on Twitter: March 9-23, 2020

Yulin Hswen et al. Am J Public Health. 2021 May.

Abstract

Objectives. To examine the extent to which the phrases, "COVID-19" and "Chinese virus" were associated with anti-Asian sentiments.Methods. Data were collected from Twitter's Application Programming Interface, which included the hashtags "#covid19" or "#chinesevirus." We analyzed tweets from March 9 to 23, 2020, corresponding to the week before and the week after President Donald J. Trump's tweet with the phrase, "Chinese Virus." Our analysis focused on 1 273 141 hashtags.Results. One fifth (19.7%) of the 495 289 hashtags with #covid19 showed anti-Asian sentiment, compared with half (50.4%) of the 777 852 hashtags with #chinesevirus. When comparing the week before March 16, 2020, to the week after, there was a significantly greater increase in anti-Asian hashtags associated with #chinesevirus compared with #covid19 (P < .001).Conclusions. Our data provide new empirical evidence supporting recommendations to use the less-stigmatizing term "COVID-19," instead of "Chinese virus."

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Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Timeline of All Twitter Hashtags Under #covid19 (n = 495 289) and #chinesevirus (n = 777 852): March 9–23, 2020
FIGURE 2—
FIGURE 2—
Timeline of Anti-Asian Twitter Hashtags Under #covid19 (n = 97 869) and #chinesevirus (n = 391 957): March 9–23, 2020
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