‘It’s Twitter, a bear pit, not a debating society’: A qualitative analysis of contrasting attitudes towards social media blocklists

Abstract

This study of tweets ( n = 2247) explores discussions about a pro-choice blocklist (@Repeal_Shield) used during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum campaign, capturing conflicting interpretations of engagement and political participation. Although qualitative Twitter studies bring methodological challenges, deep readings were needed to analyse arguments in favour and against the blocklist, and to consider what we can learn about users’ expectations of Twitter. Through deductive and inductive coding, opposing perspectives emerge on whether such lists are useful, democratic or regressive, but both sides share normative aspirations for Twitter to serve as a space for healthy debate, even if there is clear tension in how that is best achieved. Blocklists are traditionally cited as a harassment solution, facilitating participation from otherwise-excluded counterpublics. However, @Repeal_Shield demonstrates how this affordance has evolved towards omitting broad spectrums of undesired content, while using blocklists – and being listed – can be a bold political statement in itself.

Data privacy and political distrust: corporate ‘pro liars,’ ‘gridlocked Congress,’ and the Twitter issue public around the US privacy legislation

“…The last round of coding was conducted to check if the themes reached saturation. The size of sampling was determined to ensure manageability for close reading (Wheatley & Vatnoey, 2020). At each round, I closely read the tweets and created themes as they emerged.…”

‘Block talk’ on Twitter: Material affordances and communicative norms

“…It must be noted, however, that this analysis had to be selective and excluded other infrastructures of blocking, most notably, block lists (see Wheatley and Vatnoey, 2019). Furthermore, while giving space for a detailed analysis of block talk on Twitter, we had to exclude the analysis of other platforms and a comparison between them.…”

Anti-feminist Misogynist Shitposting: The Challenges of Feminist Academics Navigating Toxic Twitter

“…This adds to the precarity of practising feminist pedagogy online and hugely undermines women's parity of participation in public spaces, and also contradicts Twitter's claimed endorsement for public conversation and for protecting against hate speech. In addition to the problems with algorithms and designs that have builtin bias and normalized polarization and harassment, Twitter's current mechanisms of tackling hateful conducts shift the responsibilities to its users by asking them to report problematic and harmful behaviours or use blocklist as a form of self-care (Wheatley and Vatnoey 2020).…”