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Do Platform Migrations Compromise Content Moderation? Evidence from r/The_Donald and r/Incels

Authors:

Manoel Horta Ribeiro,

Savvas Zannettou,

Jeremy Blackburn,

Gianluca Stringhini,

Emiliano De Cristofaro,

Robert WestAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

Article No.: 316, Pages 1 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/3476057

Published: 18 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

When toxic online communities on mainstream platforms face moderation measures, such as bans, they may migrate to other platforms with laxer policies or set up their own dedicated websites. Previous work suggests that within mainstream platforms, community-level moderation is effective in mitigating the harm caused by the moderated communities. It is, however, unclear whether these results also hold when considering the broader Web ecosystem. Do toxic communities continue to grow in terms of their user base and activity on the new platforms? Do their members become more toxic and ideologically radicalized? In this paper, we report the results of a large-scale observational study of how problematic online communities progress following community-level moderation measures. We analyze data from r/The_Donald and r/Incels, two communities that were banned from Reddit and subsequently migrated to their own standalone websites. Our results suggest that, in both cases, moderation measures significantly decreased posting activity on the new platform, reducing the number of posts, active users, and newcomers. In spite of that, users in one of the studied communities (r/The_Donald) showed increases in signals associated with toxicity and radicalization, which justifies concerns that the reduction in activity may come at the expense of a more toxic and radical community. Overall, our results paint a nuanced portrait of the consequences of community-level moderation and can inform their design and deployment.

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https://doi.org/10.3389/frsps.2024.1383152
Santos Okholm CEbrahimi Fard Aten Thij M(2024)Blocking the information war? Testing the effectiveness of the EU’s censorship of Russian state propaganda among the fringe communities of Western EuropeInternet Policy Review10.14763/2024.3.178813:3Online publication date: 29-Jul-2024
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Index Terms

Do Platform Migrations Compromise Content Moderation? Evidence from r/The_Donald and r/Incels
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing
2. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Collaborative and social computing systems and tools
      1. Social networking sites

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

CSCW2

October 2021

5376 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3493286

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Apple Inc., United States

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Copyright © 2021 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 18 October 2021

Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

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Cited By

Matter DSchirmer MGrinberg NPfeffer J(2024)Investigating the increase of violent speech in Incel communities with human-guided GPT-4 prompt iterationFrontiers in Social Psychology10.3389/frsps.2024.13831522Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/frsps.2024.1383152
Santos Okholm CEbrahimi Fard Aten Thij M(2024)Blocking the information war? Testing the effectiveness of the EU’s censorship of Russian state propaganda among the fringe communities of Western EuropeInternet Policy Review10.14763/2024.3.178813:3Online publication date: 29-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.14763/2024.3.1788
Steffen EPustet MMihaljević H(2024)8. Algorithms Against Antisemitism?Antisemitism in Online Communication10.11647/obp.0406.08(205-236)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0406.08
Cima LTrujillo AAvvenuti MCresci S(2024)The Great Ban: Efficacy and Unintended Consequences of a Massive Deplatforming Operation on RedditCompanion Proceedings of the 16th ACM Web Science Conference10.1145/3630744.3663608(85-93)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1145/3630744.3663608
Kou YMa RZhang ZZhou YGui X(2024)Community Begins Where Moderation Ends: Peer Support and Its Implications for Community-Based RehabilitationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642675(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Schaffner BBhagoji ACheng SMei JShen JWang GChetty MFeamster NLakier GTan C(2024)"Community Guidelines Make this the Best Party on the Internet": An In-Depth Study of Online Platforms' Content Moderation PoliciesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642333(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Jhaver SRathi HSaha K(2024)Bystanders of Online Moderation: Examining the Effects of Witnessing Post-Removal ExplanationsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642204(1-9)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642204
Lyu YCai JCallis ACotter KCarroll J(2024)"I Got Flagged for Supposed Bullying, Even Though It Was in Response to Someone Harassing Me About My Disability.": A Study of Blind TikTokers’ Content Moderation ExperiencesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642148(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Di Marco NCinelli MAlipour SQuattrociocchi W(2024)Users Volatility on Reddit and VoatIEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems10.1109/TCSS.2024.337931811:5(5871-5879)Online publication date: Oct-2024
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Vu AHutchings AAnderson R(2024)No Easy Way Out: the Effectiveness of Deplatforming an Extremist Forum to Suppress Hate and Harassment2024 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP)10.1109/SP54263.2024.00007(717-734)Online publication date: 19-May-2024
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