Censoring Political Opposition Online: Who Does it and Why

Abstract

As ordinary citizens increasingly moderate online forums, blogs, and their own social media feeds, a new type of censoring has emerged wherein people selectively remove opposing political viewpoints from online contexts. In three studies of behavior on putative online forums, supporters of a political cause (e.g., abortion or gun rights) preferentially censored comments that opposed their cause. The tendency to selectively censor cause-incongruent online content was amplified among people whose cause-related beliefs were deeply rooted in or “fused with” their identities. Moreover, six additional identity-related measures also amplified the selective censoring effect. Finally, selective censoring emerged even when opposing comments were inoffensive and courteous. We suggest that because online censorship enacted by moderators can skew online content consumed by millions of users, it can systematically disrupt democratic dialogue and subvert social harmony.

Reactions to research on sex differences: Effect of sex favoured, researcher sex, and importance of sex‐difference domain

“…In every case, the effect was found not only among female participants but also among the males. These findings mesh nicely with related research showing that people view claims that males perform better in a given domain as less credible than equivalent claims that females do (Colombo et al, 2016;von Hippel & Buss, 2017;Winegard et al, 2018), and that people are more inclined to censor the former claims (Ashokkumar et al, 2020;Clark et al, 2020Clark et al, , 2022. The aversion to male-favouring sex differences appears to be a robust phenomenon.…”

Morally Homogeneous Networks and Radicalism

“…Today, the perception of moral convergence is a frequently experienced phenomenon among social network users. Indeed, moral values-especially that of moral purity (e.g., religiosity, sacredness)-have been identified as a source of homophily and an important factor in the formation of bonds and communities online (Dehghani et al, 2016), often resulting in moral echo chambers with highly exaggerated perceptions of homogeneity among the members (Ashokkumar et al, 2020;Price et al, 2006).…”

Ambivalent Effects of Positive Contact Between Women and Men on Collective Actions for Women’s Rights

“…Identity fusion was originally proposed to explain extreme sacrifices directed at promoting the welfare of one's group and its members (Swann et al, 2012), but it also reliably predicts less extreme outcomes, such as collective action intentions (Besta et al, 2018), donations, or emotional support (for a review, see Gómez et al, 2020). Identity fusion includes not only a relationship with an ingroup but also with a particular person (e.g., a leader, Kunst et al, 2019) or with a symbolic entity (e.g., a cause, Ashokkumar et al, 2020). This aspect of identity fusion is particularly relevant to the current research, because our interest was collective action for a particular cause, the feminist movement, which could apply to men as well as women, rather than fusion with women as a group.…”

“…This aspect of identity fusion is particularly relevant to the current research, because our interest was collective action for a particular cause, the feminist movement, which could apply to men as well as women, rather than fusion with women as a group. Identity fusion with the feminist movement also represents a type of politicized identity (Ashokkumar et al, 2020;Besta et al, 2018), and politicized identities are more predictive of collective action than are broader social identities (Simon & Klandermans, 2001).…”