The (limited) effects of target characteristics on public opinion of hate speech laws

Abstract

When should hate speech be restricted? As the prevalence of hateful political discussions increase, governments and tech companies face pressures to regulate social media platforms. Yet, hate speech is often used as a generic everyday term conflating the severity of the content with whom it targets, leading to a widespread perception that citizens cannot agree on what “hate” is. I offer a comprehensive test of when ordinary citizens want to restrict hate speech across two nationally representative samples in Denmark and the United States. I demonstrate that the public’s willingness to restrict hate speech almost exclusively stems from the severity of the content. Furthermore, I find little to no support for the partisan bias account, as differences in regulating hate speech stem primarily from sensitivity to severity. Across national differences and political lines, preferences for restricting hate speech is primarily shaped by the severity of the content, not who it targets or partisanship.

Consensus on community guidelines: an experimental study on the legitimacy of content removal in social media

“…We, therefore, posit that the seriousness of hate crimes is assessed differently from the evaluation of traditional criminal behaviour. In particular, but contrary to what has been observed in previous literature (Rasmussen, 2022) we take the higher values of the seriousness of behaviours directed at groups that have historically been discriminated against as indicative of a notable social concern about the circulation of hate speech on social media. As far as the population of our study participants is concerned, we diagnose, as previous studies have already pointed out (Riedl et al 2022), considerable social support for the efforts of social media companies to combat hate speech and its consequences on their platforms.…”

Incorporating Psychological Science Into Policy Making

“…Paying specific attention to harmful misinformation is particularly important in light of the proportionality principle. The severity of harm (represented, e.g., by the number of casualties or other adverse consequences) is one of the most impactful factors in people’s decisions to impose limits on online speech (Kozyreva et al, 2023) and hate speech (Rasmussen, 2022). Online platforms’ policies have – at least until recently – largely reflected that point.…”