White people more likely to confront authors of racist online posts to set discussion rules

Study: White people more likely to confront those who post racist content on social media if their objective were to defend the norms for political discussions rather than to change the person’s prejudiced beliefs.

Researchers surveyed people during the 2020 U.S. presidential election cycle to explore the conditions under which white people would challenge hate speech.

Norm-setting changes the nature of the social media environment, eroding the social power that allows users to disseminate racist ideology.

“Framing the confrontation goal as norm-setting may spur white social media users to step up rather than stand by,” he said. “This may change the social power dynamics online, instead of trying to convince racist users to behave better out of the goodness of their own hearts.” Journal New Media & Society Method of Research Survey Subject of Research People Article Title Making the impossible possible? Framing confrontations of racism on social media as norm-setting Article Publication Date 8-Nov-2023 COI Statement No conflicts of interest reported by the authors..