Trolling and insulting others on social media in Spain: the role of social media news use, culture of impunity, and social media envy

Prior research has delved into the diverse effects that social media news consumption has over broader social media interaction patterns. From social ties curation, to ties filtering, blocking, and other behaviors, social media news consumption has been empirically deemed to influence the way citizens socialize in these virtual spaces. Drawing on a diverse and nationally representative two wave-panel data from Spain, this study builds on this strand of the literature by investigating the role of social media news, social media culture of impunity and social media envy or feelings of jealousy, and resentment toward others, over trolling and insulting people in social media. Results show that social media news has a direct association with malicious trolling but does not fuel abusive verbal interactions. The latter is mainly explained by individuals who embrace a culture of impunity–the expectation that in social media one may commit a crime or violation and not be held accountable–, and social media envy. Furthermore, there is a positive divergent interaction between social media envy and culture of impunity on insulting other citizens. That is, people who report higher levels of social media envy and culture of impunity tend to engage in insulting others the most in social media.