We Should Not Get Rid of Incivility Online

Abstract

Incivility and toxicity have become concepts du jour in research about social media. The clear normative implication in much of this research is that incivility is bad and should be eliminated. Extensive research—including some that we’ve authored—has been dedicated to finding ways to reduce or eliminate incivility from online discussion spaces. In our work as part of the Civic Signals Initiative, we’ve been thinking carefully about what metrics should be adopted by social media platforms eager to create better spaces for their users. When we tell people about this project, removing incivility from the platforms frequently comes up as a suggested metric. In thinking about incivility, however, we’ve become less convinced that it is desirable, or even possible, for social media platforms to remove all uncivil content. In this short essay, we discuss research on incivility, our rationale for a more complicated normative stance regarding incivility, and what other orientations may be more useful. We conclude with a post mortem arguing that we should not abandon research on incivility altogether, but we should recognize the limitations of a concept that is difficult to universalize.

“What an idiot!” – How the appraisal of the writer of an uncivil comment impacts discussion behavior

“…However, the concept of incivility is subjective by nature (Herbst, 2010). In this vein, Chen et al (2019) suggested that incivility should be assessed by its outcomes rather than being based on the usage of particular words or phrases. However, the underlying mechanisms of how incivility affects individuals own behavior are not yet sufficiently researched.…”

“…Although this is a very serious effect, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of how incivility discourages individuals from joining discussions. While there is scholarly consensus on the subjective nature of incivility (Chen et al, 2019), it is usually treated as a distinct attribute of messages or discussions. This perspective, however, overshadows that social perception directs how people explain others' behavior.…”

Connective Effervescence and Streaming Chat During Political Debates

“…There is an extensive literature defining and exploring different types of non-deliberative online speech(Chen, 2017;Masullo Chen et al, 2019). These are important, but given our interest in the wave of text that comprises a streaming chat, we are less concerned about drawing these fine distinctions than in the aggregate experience.…”

Digital Threats to Democracy: Comparative Lessons and Possible Remedies

“…Research on incivility in online political talk offers an illustrative example of a journey in the opposite direction to that currently taken by scholars of disinformation and other digital threats. While early studies considered most, if not all, forms of online incivility as inherently problematic for democracy (Mabry 1997; Ng and Detenber 2005), contemporary research has developed more nuanced conceptualizations of different types of antinormative online political talk, leading not only to more precise empirical measurements of a complex constellation of phenomena but also to more refined, and overall less pessimistic, normative assessments of their contributions to democracy (Masullo Chen et al 2019; Papacharissi 2004; Rossini, forthcoming). It is too early to tell whether the currently burgeoning field of online disinformation will follow a similar path as scholars continue polishing their concepts, measurements, and underlying normative models, but the possibility should not be ruled out.…”