The Science of Hate

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About

HateLab is a research hub for understanding and countering hate speech and hate crime. In 2023, founders Professor Matt Williams and Professor Pete Burnap established nisien.ai, a Cardiff University spin-out which translates research and technology into services that operate at scale. The HateLab Dashboard evolved into the HERO platform, supporting organisations to identify emerging threats, protect people and make evidence-based interventions. HateLab continues to advance the research and public-policy evidence. nisien.ai provides the commercial route through which that work is deployed with organisations in sport, government and civil society.

Latest news

New study examines how social media can intensify offline violence against women and girls

Research commissioned by London's Violence Reduction Unit finds that social media can act as both a mirror and a motor of misogynistic attitudes and behaviours.
Cardiff City appoints nisien.ai as Official Online Safeguarding Partner

The partnership will use real-time online-risk intelligence to help Cardiff City's safeguarding team identify when players may need support.
nisien.ai joins international coalition tackling online abuse in sport

Cardiff University spin-out nisien.ai has joined United Against Online Abuse, contributing expertise in online harms and AI to an international coalition working to make sport safer.
From reactive reporting to proactive safeguarding in Welsh football

The Football Association of Wales is using technology developed from HateLab research to identify online risks earlier and strengthen support for players and officials.
Investment accelerates the next stage of HateLab research and technology

Investment from the Development Bank of Wales and the British Business Bank's Investment Fund for Wales is helping nisien.ai scale technology originating in HateLab research.
Taking research into real-world online safeguarding

Research developed at Cardiff University's HateLab has become the foundation of nisien.ai, a university spin-out applying AI, data science and criminology to online safeguarding at scale.
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Projects

HateLab Dashboard

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (part of UKRI) between 2017 and 2023, this grant supported the development of the HateLab Dashboard which is provided free of charge to civil society organisations that do not have the resources to routinely monitor and counter online hate speech and divisive disinformation.

Understanding [Online/Offline] Society: Linking Surveys with Twitter Data

Funded from 2020 to 2024, this project examined the link between the expression of prejudice and hate in online and offline settings.

Hate Crime After Brexit

This project was a partnership between HateLab and the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT). Funded between 2019 and 2022, the project linked multiple hate crime datasets in the UK, allowing for causal inferences to be made.  A new linked dataset, incorporating both offline and online measures, allowed us to determine if events, like the Brexit vote, […]

Understanding Online Hate Speech as a Motivator for Hate Crime

Funded between 2016 and 2019, this project investigated the utility of Twitter data for understanding what types, for whom, and where online hate speech acts a ‘signature’ of offline hate crime. The study developed a statistical model that linked anonymous aggregate online hate speech and offline hate crimes, using tweets and reported hate crimes in […]

Hate Speech and Social Media

Funded between 2013 and 2014, this project developed a range of machine learning classifiers designed to identify online hate speech across the protected characteristics of race, religion, sexual orientation and disability.  These classifiers were used in the first study of online hate speech produced in the aftermath of a terrorist event. Using Big Data to […]

Social Media and Prediction: Crime Sensing, Data Integration and Statistical Modelling

This project ran between 2013 and 2015, and aimed to test if social media data could be used to  estimate crime patterns at an aggregate level.  Data were collected over 12 months generating 180 million geocoded tweets and close to 600,000 Metropolitan Police recorded crime incidents.  The ethics of using social media in crime and security […]
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Publications

Babic, A., Williams, M. and Luker, J. , (2026)

Social Media and Offline Violence

Project Report. London Violence Reduction Unit, MOPAC.

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Foster, B., Williams, M., and Burnap, P. , (2023)

Combatting community tensions in Wales: Mapping the cooperation space for multi-agency cohesion delivery

British Journal of Community Justice 19 (1), pp.55-81.

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Cullen, A. and Williams, M. L., (2022)

Online hate speech targeting the England women’s football team during the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022

HateLab Reseach Report

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Williams, M. L., Sutherland, A., Roy-Chowdhury, V., Loke, T., Cullen, A., Sloan, L., Burnap, P. and Giannasi, P., (2022)

The effect of the Brexit vote on the variation in race and religious hate crimes in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

The British Journal of Criminology

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Williams, M., (2021)

The Science of Hate: How prejudice becomes hate and what we can do to stop it

Faber and Faber

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