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Behind the Counter: Exploring the Motivations and Barriers of Online Counterspeech Writing by Ping, Kaike; Kumar, Anisha; Ding, Xiaohan; Rho, Eugenia is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Behind the Counter: Exploring the Motivations and Barriers of Online Counterspeech Writing about?

Current research mainly explores the attributes and impact of online counterspeech, leaving a gap in understanding of who engages in online counterspeech or what motivates or deters users from participating. To investigate this, we surveyed 458 English-speaking U.S. participants, analyzing key motivations and barriers underlying online counterspeech engagement. We presented each participant with three hate speech examples from a set of 900, spanning race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and disability, and requested counterspeech responses. Subsequent questions assessed their satisfaction, perceived difficulty, and the effectiveness of their counterspeech. Our findings show that having been a target of online hate is a key driver of frequent online counterspeech engagement. People differ in their motivations and barriers towards engaging in online counterspeech across different demographic groups. Younger individuals, women, those with higher education levels, and regular witnesses to online hate are more reluctant to engage in online counterspeech due to concerns around public exposure, retaliation, and third-party harassment. Varying motivation and barriers in counterspeech

Author

Ping, Kaike; Kumar, Anisha; Ding, Xiaohan; Rho, Eugenia

Published

2024

Language

EN