Short answer
Angry reactions rose, but so did all emoji reactions. Anger depended more on which party than on when.
What the evidence shows
- The study uses 526,813 posts from 112 parties and 74 leaders in 20 European countries, March 2016 to September 2020. Angry reactions rose from 3.7% of all reactions in 2016 to 7.9% in 2020, but all emoji reactions rose from 11% to 22% as users replaced likes with emoji.
- Within the same country and month, populist radical-right parties' pages drew 3.1 points more anger as a share of all reactions than mainstream parties, and parties in government 2.2 points less.
- When a party entered government, the anger on its page fell. Anger was lower in the 30 days before national elections.
- Posts with more anger, holding total reactions constant, drew more shares: ten points more anger went with about 17% more shares.
Caveats
The paper describes patterns across pages; it cannot show that anger caused the shares.