A large randomized experiment on Reddit shows that community-specific, drafting-time moderation guidance increases successful posts, reduces moderator workload, and improves engagement, with no significant effect on user participation.
Bystanders of Online Moderation: Examining the Effects of Witnessing Post-Removal Explanations
1 Pith paper cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
1
Pith paper citing it
abstract
Prior research on transparency in content moderation has demonstrated the benefits of offering post-removal explanations to sanctioned users. In this paper, we examine whether the influence of such explanations transcends those who are moderated to the bystanders who witness such explanations. We conduct a quasi-experimental study on two popular Reddit communities (r/askreddit and r/science) by collecting their data spanning 13 months-a total of 85.5M posts made by 5.9M users. Our causal-inference analyses show that bystanders significantly increase their posting activity and interactivity levels as compared to their matched control set of users. Our findings suggest that explanations clarify and reinforce the social norms of online spaces, enhance community engagement, and benefit many more members than previously understood. We discuss the theoretical implications and design recommendations of this research, focusing on how investing more efforts in post-removal explanations can help build thriving online communities.
fields
cs.CY 1years
2024 1verdicts
CONDITIONAL 1representative citing papers
citing papers explorer
-
Post Guidance for Online Communities
A large randomized experiment on Reddit shows that community-specific, drafting-time moderation guidance increases successful posts, reduces moderator workload, and improves engagement, with no significant effect on user participation.