Resolving content moderation dilemmas between free speech and harmful misinformation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120, pp. e2210666120
Abstract
In online content moderation, two key values may come into conflict: protecting freedom of expression and preventing harm. Robust rules based in part on how citizens think about these moral dilemmas are necessary to deal with this conflict in a principled way, yet little is known about people’s judgments and preferences around content moderation. We examined such moral dilemmas in a conjoint survey experiment where US respondents ( N = 2, 564) indicated whether they would remove problematic social media posts on election denial, antivaccination, Holocaust denial, and climate change denial and whether they would take punitive action against the accounts. Respondents were shown key information about the user and their post as well as the consequences of the misinformation. The majority preferred quashing harmful misinformation over protecting free speech. Respondents were more reluctant to suspend accounts than to remove posts and more likely to do either if the harmful consequences of the misinformation were severe or if sharing it was a repeated offense. Features related to the account itself (the person behind the account, their partisanship, and number of followers) had little to no effect on respondents’ decisions. Content moderation of harmful misinformation was a partisan issue: Across all four scenarios, Republicans were consistently less willing than Democrats or independents to remove posts or penalize the accounts that posted them. Our results can inform the design of transparent rules for content moderation of harmful misinformation.
Authors 7
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Anastasia Kozyreva corresponding
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Affiliation as printed
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin 14195, Germany
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, 14195
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Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Affiliation as printed
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin 14195, Germany
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, 14195
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The University of Western Australia · University of Bristol
Affiliation as printed
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1QU, United Kingdom
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom, BS8 1QU
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, 6009
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Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Affiliation as printed
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin 14195, Germany
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, 14195
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Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Affiliation as printed
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin 14195, Germany
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, 14195
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Leiden University · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Affiliation as printed
Amsterdam Law and Technology Institute, VU-Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081 HV, The Netherlands
Center for Law and Digital Technologies, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands, 2311 ES
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PY, United Kingdom
Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom, EX4 4PY
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