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Nudges in Social Media: A Study on Encouraging Positive Engagement

A recent pre-registered study led by researcher Tatiana Celadin explored the impact of various behavioral nudges designed to promote positive interactions in online communities. The experiment specifically aimed to assess the efficacy of seven distinct approaches intended to mitigate hateful speech and foster prosocial behaviors. These approaches included reminders of descriptive and injunctive norms, methods to cool down negative emotions, promoting empathy and deliberation, and enhancing reputation awareness.

Despite its intention, the findings revealed that none of the nudges effectively diminished the prevalence of hateful speech online. In a surprising twist, however, the nudges resulted in a notable increase in user engagement with benign and positive content. This outcome highlights the ongoing difficulties faced by online platforms in controlling hateful speech while simultaneously encouraging positive discourse.

The comprehensive study was conducted with over 4,000 participants from the United States, who were recruited through the online platform Prolific. Participants interacted with a version of Facebook’s newsfeed, where they were exposed to various nudges or placed in a control group that received no prompt before browsing posts. Each participant assessed a total of 14 posts, which varied in their levels of harmfulness based on participant evaluations of each post’s “abusive” and “hateful” nature.

Interestingly, while there was no significant difference in the engagement levels with harmful posts among the groups, the nudges effectively drove participants toward more positive and harmless content. This outcome suggests that, although addressing hate speech remains a complex challenge, encouraging interactions with positive content could serve as a potential strategy for mitigating the impact of harmful discourse.

The researchers concluded that even if nudges do not decrease the spread of harmful content directly, increasing the volume of harmless content could serve to overshadow and dilute negativity within social media spaces.

More information: For a deeper insight into this research, visit the published study in PNAS Nexus entitled “Promoting civil discourse on social media using nudges: A tournament of seven interventions.” The full article can be accessed at DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae380.

Citation: Social media experiment shows prosocial nudges fail to reduce online hate (2024, October 1) retrieved 1 October 2024 from phys.org.

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phys.org