Social Media and Digital Collaboration
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Paper Number
2394
Paper Type
Completed
Description
We contribute to the ongoing discussion on the design of legal regulation of harmful online content by analyzing the effect of the first regulation, the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), recently adopted in Germany on content generated on Twitter. This law aims at combating hate speech on large social networks in Germany by facilitating the reporting of hate speech for users and obliging social networks to timely react to this reporting. In a difference-in-differences framework, we measure the causal effect of the law on the intensity of hateful and attacking language used in tweets comparing tweets by German and Austrian users before and after the introduction of the law in Germany. Our results show a significant and robust decrease in average hate intensity. The effects are driven by the decrease of hate intensity among users with many followers and users who employed a strongly toxic language prior to the law while tweeting rarely.
Recommended Citation
Slivko, Olga and Andres, Raphaela, "Regulation of Hate Speech and Hatefulness on German Twitter" (2021). ICIS 2021 Proceedings. 11.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2021/social_media/social_media/11
Regulation of Hate Speech and Hatefulness on German Twitter
We contribute to the ongoing discussion on the design of legal regulation of harmful online content by analyzing the effect of the first regulation, the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), recently adopted in Germany on content generated on Twitter. This law aims at combating hate speech on large social networks in Germany by facilitating the reporting of hate speech for users and obliging social networks to timely react to this reporting. In a difference-in-differences framework, we measure the causal effect of the law on the intensity of hateful and attacking language used in tweets comparing tweets by German and Austrian users before and after the introduction of the law in Germany. Our results show a significant and robust decrease in average hate intensity. The effects are driven by the decrease of hate intensity among users with many followers and users who employed a strongly toxic language prior to the law while tweeting rarely.
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Comments
16-SocMedia