In early 2021 the United States Capitol in Washington was stormed during a riot and violent attack. A similar storming occurred in Brazil in 2023. Although both attacks were instances in longer sequences of events, these have provided a testimony for many observers who had claimed that online actions, including the propagation of disinformation, have offline consequences. Soon after, a number of papers have been published about the relation between online disinformation and offline violence, among other related relations. Hitherto, the effects upon political protests have been unexplored. This paper thus evaluates such effects with a time series cross-sectional sample of 125 countries in a period between 2000 and 2019. The results are mixed. Based on Bayesian multi-level regression modeling, (i) there indeed is an effect between online disinformation and offline protests, but the effect is partially meditated by political polarization. The results are clearer in a sample of countries belonging to the European Economic Area. With this sample, (ii) offline protest counts increase from online disinformation disseminated by domestic governments, political parties, and politicians as well as by foreign governments. Furthermore, (iii) Internet shutdowns tend to decrease the counts, although, paradoxically, the absence of governmental online monitoring of social media tends to also decrease these. With these results, the paper contributes to the blossoming disinformation research by modeling the impact of disinformation upon offline phenomenon. The contribution is important due to the various policy measures planned or already enacted.

翻译：2021年初，美国华盛顿国会大厦在骚乱和暴力袭击中被冲击。2023年巴西发生了类似的冲击事件。尽管这两次袭击都是更长事件序列中的实例，但它们为许多观察者提供了证据，这些观察者曾声称包括虚假信息传播在内的在线行为会产生线下后果。此后不久，一批关于在线虚假信息与线下暴力及其他相关关系的论文相继发表。迄今为止，其对政治抗议活动的影响尚未得到探索。因此，本文利用2000年至2019年间125个国家的时间序列横截面样本评估了此类影响。结果较为复杂。基于贝叶斯多层次回归模型分析发现：(i) 在线虚假信息与线下抗议活动之间确实存在关联效应，但该效应部分由政治极化所中介。在欧洲经济区国家样本中，结果更为清晰。在该样本中，(ii) 由国内政府、政党、政客以及外国政府传播的在线虚假信息会导致线下抗议数量增加。此外，(iii) 互联网中断往往会减少抗议数量，然而矛盾的是，政府缺乏对社交媒体的在线监控同样会减少抗议活动。基于这些结果，本文通过建模虚假信息对线下现象的影响，为蓬勃发展的虚假信息研究作出了贡献。鉴于各国已规划或实施多种政策措施，这一贡献具有重要意义。