Development and Mass-dissemination of Intervention to Mobilize Pro-social Bystander Reactions to Hostile Content on Social Media

While user-generated content and functionalities that enable users to engage in discussions on social media hold significant democratic potential, online hostility, such as incivility, discrimination and hate speech diminishes the quality of such deliberation.

As social media providers are unable to police social media content and be present to moderate discussions effectively, we need to democratize the solution to online hostility by relying more on ordinary citizens who take part in online discussions to react and intervene as bystanders when they witness hostile behavior.

However, to realize the potential of pro-social bystander reactions to online hostility, we need to overcome the tendency for diffusion of responsibility and bystander apathy in situations of online hostility. We need behavior change away from the current norm of passivity. This requires encouragement of pro-social bystander reactions through interventions providing guidance and motivation.

Building on an extensive behavioral analysis of bystander behavior in response to online hostility carried out within the ERC-CoG STANDBY-project, we have developed and pilot-tested such a guidance message the Speak up, Report, Support-intervention which has proven effective in mobilizing pro-social bystander reactions to online hostility.

The aim of the STANDBYCOMMS-project is to: 1) further improve this intervention through collaboration with world-leading experts in behavior change interventions on social media and end-user engagement (media corporations, NGOs, political parties, individual politicians etc. who are providers of comment sections on social media platforms), 2) field test the intervention at scale, and 3) build and market an online library facilitating mass-dissemination of the intervention free-of-charge to end-users.

The intervention will be made available in multiple languages and adaptations for different platforms along with implementation guides.