ArticlePublisher preview available

“I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree with you”: How social media users react (or not) to online out‐group aggression

Authors:
Paolo Antonetti at EDHEC Business School
Paolo Antonetti
Benedetta Crisafulli at Birkbeck, University of London
Benedetta Crisafulli
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

Social networking sites (SNS) routinely ban aggressive users. Such bans are sometimes perceived as a limitation to the right to free speech. While research has examined SNS users' perceptions of online aggression, little is known about how observers make trade‐offs between free speech and the desire to punish aggression. By focusing on reactions to an SNS ban, this study explores under what circumstances users consider the protection of the right to free speech as more important than the suppression of aggression. We propose a model of moderated mediation that explains under what circumstances online aggression increases the acceptance of a ban. When posts display aggression, the ban is less likely to be perceived as violating free speech and as unfair. Consequently, aggression reduces the likelihood that users will protest through negative word of mouth. Moreover, users protest against an SNS ban only when this affects an in‐group user (rather than an out‐group user). This in‐group bias, however, diminishes when an in‐group aggressor targets a high warmth out‐group user. The study raises managerial implications for the effective management of aggressive interactions on SNS and for the persuasive communication of a decision to ban a user engaging in aggressive behavior.
Figures - available from: Psychology and Marketing
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Wiley.
Learn more
Content available from Psychology and Marketing
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Received: 12 July 2020
|
Revised: 9 November 2020
|
Accepted: 19 December 2020
DOI: 10.1002/mar.21447
RESEARCH ARTICLE
“I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree
with you”: How social media users react (or not) to online
out‐group aggression
Paolo Antonetti
1
|Benedetta Crisafulli
2
1
Department of Marketing, NEOMA Business
School, Rouen Campus, Mont‐Saint‐Aignan,
France
2
Department of Management, Birbeck,
University of London, Bloomsbury,
London, UK
Correspondence
Paolo Antonetti, Department of Marketing,
NEOMA Business School, Rouen Campus,
76130 Mont‐Saint‐Aignan, France.
Email: paolo.antonetti@neoma-bs.fr
Abstract
Social networking sites (SNS) routinely ban aggressive users. Such bans are some-
times perceived as a limitation to the right to free speech. While research has
examined SNS users' perceptions of online aggression, little is known about how
observers make trade‐offs between free speech and the desire to punish aggression.
By focusing on reactions to an SNS ban, this study explores under what circum-
stances users consider the protection of the right to free speech as more important
than the suppression of aggression. We propose a model of moderated mediation
that explains under what circumstances online aggression increases the acceptance
of a ban. When posts display aggression, the ban is less likely to be perceived as
violating free speech and as unfair. Consequently, aggression reduces the likelihood
that users will protest through negative word of mouth. Moreover, users protest
against an SNS ban only when this affects an in‐group user (rather than an out‐
group user). This in‐group bias, however, diminishes when an in‐group aggressor
targets a high warmth out‐group user. The study raises managerial implications for
the effective management of aggressive interactions on SNS and for the persuasive
communication of a decision to ban a user engaging in aggressive behavior.
KEYWORDS
anger, free speech, negative word of mouth, online aggression, social networking site bans,
unfairness
“It is better to debate a question without settling it,
than to settle a question without debating it.”
Joseph Joubert
1|INTRODUCTION
On November 23, 2018, the Canadian journalist Meghan Murphy
was banned permanently from Twitter. She had posted several
comments on how society should view transgenderism. Murphy
posted that “men aren't women”and asked: “What is the difference
between a man and a trans woman?”She also used a male pronoun to
refer to a transgender who identifies as a woman. Twitter considered
such statements hateful speech, because they degrade someone
based on their gender identity (BBC News, 2019). Murphy protested
and launched a lawsuit for what she sees as a dangerous violation of
the right to free speech (Wells, 2019).
The case illustrates the important role that social networking
sites (SNS) play in the promotion (or hindrance) of the right to free
speech. The growing importance of SNS as forums for debate of
social and political issues increases societal scrutiny on how they
handle the controversies that such debates sometimes generate
(Klein, 2018; Malik, 2018). Indeed, SNS have often willingly assumed
this mantle, as in the case of Twitter, which boasted of being “the
free‐speech wing of the free‐speech party”(Halliday, 2012).
Psychol Mark. 2021;38:1633–1650. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC
|
1633
... Kacker and Saurav (2020) identified how users want to stay interpersonally connected with their peers by knowing what they are doing on an on-demand basis to satisfy their basic human need for connection. Today, users take these expressive outlets as an opportunity to share their personal interests and opinions to connect with other users all around the world (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021). However, even though social media platforms (i.e., Tik Tok, Instagram, and Facebook) may glamorize the fun of engaging in what seems to be socially inclusive communities, there is a darker side to these social media platforms that warrants exploration. ...
... 3. In-group user -a user that is deemed to have a certain type of popularity within the social media platform (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021). ...
... 4. Out-of-group user -a user that is not widely known to the majority of members on the platform in any way (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021 7. Social media -is a general term that broadly labels internet applications that allow users to generate content and exchange information in the form of a blog, message board, picture, or video-based platform (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). ...
What's Sparking the Madness? Exploration of Social Media Possibly Influencing Aggression Amongst Online Users
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Dec 2022
The purpose of this dissertation is to address the research gap regarding social media platforms having a possible influence when provoking experiences of internal (i.e., emotions/feelings and cognitions) and/or external (i.e., behaviors) forms of aggression and problematic internet use in their online community members. A brief examination of the aggression-frustration hypothesis will construct a foundational theoretical framework of the emotional and behavioral processes that may occur in users while utilizing their preferred social media platform. Recent peer- reviewed literature will be examined to highlight the existing research gap. The present study will attempt to explore possible explanations behind users’ motives for engaging in aggression and aggressive characteristic traits that are most commonly displayed in users. An exploration of social media usage and aggression identification will be surveyed. Survey tools that will be utilized is the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ), Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ), and the Social Media Disorder Scale (SMDS). Implications to support needs for further research will be provided.
View
... Our study extends nascent research that considers conflict in the subversion of marketing (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021;Husemann et al., 2015;. Previous research acknowledges that market actors may adhere to opposed institutional logics, and that these may give rise to both the assertion and defense, of competition and power in marketplace exchanges (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021;Husemann et al., 2015;. ...
... Our study extends nascent research that considers conflict in the subversion of marketing (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021;Husemann et al., 2015;. Previous research acknowledges that market actors may adhere to opposed institutional logics, and that these may give rise to both the assertion and defense, of competition and power in marketplace exchanges (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021;Husemann et al., 2015;. ...
... Further, our case showed that the performative use of rhetoric in a public forum stimulated the development of revised market logics through the production of alternative frames of reference or message frames (Biraghi et al., 2020). Therefore, we extend prior research that highlights micro-level consumer-driven marketplace legitimization mechanisms in social media (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021;Biraghi et al., 2020;McCarthy & Glozer, 2021). ...
How consumers subvert advertising through rhetorical institutional work
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2022
  • PSYCHOL MARKET
We consider consumer subversion of advertising by investigating social media activity in response to an advertisement aired by a global brand. We draw on Aristotle's rhetorical justification to show how consumers used logos (logical appeals), ethos (credibility or moral authority), pathos (emotion‐inducing), and kairos (opportunity) rhetoric to challenge and undermine this advertising. Our study provides greater understanding of the mechanisms of consumer activism, examining how rhetorical strategies were deployed within consumers' institutional work toward the subversion of contentious advertising. We also examine the work of an organized boundary group to marshal consumer support for marketplace change and identify how ensuing argumentation led to the development of novel message frames intended to delegitimize advertising practices. We warn advertisers and brands to consider the implications of such collective consumer subversion at a time when the public and media are increasingly intolerant of organizational transgressions, particularly in relation to social justice issues, for example, gender stereotyping in advertising.
View
... To prevent serious incidents that involve legal actions, social media platform providers routinely ban aggressive users to restrict the right to free speech in a negative context. However, this restriction is considered a violation of the right to freedom of speech and is deemed unfair (Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021). ...
... The Facebook team has not taken adequate measures to curb this negative content (P7). Antonetti and Crisafulli (2021) stated that this ban restricts individuals' freedom of speech on social media. Their research shows that individuals generally oppose the ban policy by social media platforms, especially when it involves politics, and they often use freedom of speech rhetoric to justify their opposition. ...
Bawang Army in Malaysia: Reaction Toward Hate Speech -Is it a Cyber-Bully or Cyber-Aggression?
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2023
The Bawang army phenomenon is newly recognized, and no prior studies have explored it yet. Consequently, understanding this concept necessitates a qualitative research approach. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with pertinent stakeholders to probe various research questions. To achieve the first research objective, involving understanding Bawang army, the codes were organized into four categories; definitions, reasons, issues, and activities. The terminologies coined by Malaysian netizens, such as Bawang army and 'mak kau hijau', shape the identity of this phenomenon. The second research objective is to differentiate the Bawang army's classifications, determining whether it falls under cyber-bullying or cyber-aggression. In-depth discussions were analyzed based on previous literature using the constant-comparative method. Several implications were observed. Firstly, industry practitioners need to exercise greater consideration when creating social media content. Secondly, future research should further investigate the distinct typologies of cyber-bullying and cyber-aggression autonomously.
View
... Our INTR conceptualization is supported by the notion that opinions and group membership (e.g. political affiliation) can shape perceptions concerning what content is misinformation and what content is not misinformation (Antonetti and Crisafulli, 2021). ...
... Liberal (vs. conservative) ideological tendencies are relevant in the social media context, because they shape reactions to unethical behavior on social media (Antonetti and Crisafulli, 2021). Most notably, ideological tendencies are reflected in the thinking styles of liberals and conservatives. ...
You are lying! How misinformation accusations spread on Twitter
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2023
  • INTERNET RES
Purpose Misinformation is notoriously difficult to combat. Although social media firms have focused on combating the publication of misinformation, misinformation accusations, an important by-product of the spread of misinformation, have been neglected. The authors offer insights into factors contributing to the spread of misinformation accusations on social media platforms. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a corpus of 234,556 tweets about the 2020 US presidential election (Study 1) and 99,032 tweets about the 2022 US midterm elections (Study 2) to show how the sharing of misinformation accusations is explained by locomotion orientation. Findings The study findings indicate that the sharing of misinformation accusations is explained by writers' lower locomotion orientation, which is amplified among liberal tweet writers. Research limitations/implications Practitioners and policymakers can use the study findings to track and reduce the spread of misinformation accusations by developing algorithms to analyze the language of posts. A limitation of this research is that it focuses on political misinformation accusations. Future research in different contexts, such as vaccines, would be pertinent. Practical implications The authors show how social media firms can identify messages containing misinformation accusations with the potential to become viral by considering the tweet writer's locomotion language and geographical data. Social implications Early identification of messages containing misinformation accusations can help to improve the quality of the political conversation and electoral decision-making. Originality/value Strategies used by social media platforms to identify misinformation lack scale and perform poorly, making it important for social media platforms to manage misinformation accusations in an effort to retain trust. The authors identify linguistic and geographical factors that drive misinformation accusation retweets.
View
... Individuals' perceptions of social support can increase their sense of belonging within online communities [14]. This sense of belongingness has an impact on their pro-social behaviors within online communities such as eWOM [15]. ...
Exploring the Intent-Behavior Gap in Social Media Advocacy for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Jun 2024
The concepts of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) are crucial for fostering inclusive societies and promoting equal opportunities for all individuals, contributing to social cohesion, economic development, and overall well-being. Social media platforms have offered several benefits for individuals, including information and knowledge sharing, and enhanced connectivity and networking opportunities. On the other hand, social media has enabled several forms of GESI violations, including hate speech, targeted harassment, and discriminatory content. One important solution to face these violations is the challenging behavior of those who violate GESI concepts on social media platforms. While many users may intend to confront and combat such violations, the actual behavior may not always align with these intentions. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate users' challenging intentions and behavior of GESI violations on social media platforms, while focusing on the cultural differences among the UK and Arab. We also investigated the moderating impact of social inclusion on the relationship between intention and behavior regarding challenging violations of GESI. To meet this goal, we deployed a survey among two samples of UK (325) and Arab (312) participants. Our results show that there are intention-behavior disparities in challenging GESI violations on social media platforms for both samples. The results also confirmed the moderating impact of social inclusion on the relationship between intention and behaviors regarding challenging violations of GESI among UK participants and rejected it among Arab participants.
View
... Although perceived unfairness has a strong impact on consumers' attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Antonetti & Crisafulli, 2021;Bolton et al., 2003;White et al., 2012), most focus on consumer attitude and satisfaction as they experience unfairness while less examines the downstream effect on consumer decision-making. Seldom has research explored the perception of unfairness on consumer choice. ...
Perceived unfairness increases desire for unique products: The role of need for social status
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2022
  • PSYCHOL MARKET
Consumers often receive unfair treatment during service encounters, such as receiving less monetary compensation than peers, thus inducing perceptions of unfairness. However, no research has yet shown how this perceived unfairness affects consumers' likelihood of choosing unique products. We propose that when consumers feel that they are being unfairly treated in comparison with their group peers, they are more likely to seek unique products. Need for social status is proposed to mediate the above process. Perceived economic mobility is suggested to moderate this effect so that consumers with high (vs. low) economic mobility perception are more (vs. less) likely to choose unique products after being treated unfairly. We demonstrate these effects with six studies. Studies 1a and 1b reveal a positive correlation between chronic fairness deprivation and desire for unique products. Study 2a demonstrates the causal relationship between primed unfairness and desire for unique products and study 2b tests the effects of a set of potential confounds. Study 3 examines need for social status as the underlying mechanism. Study 4 further explores perceived economic mobility as the boundary condition in the above relationship. Companies can benefit from our findings by providing unique products or services to restore consumers' status and buffer negative feelings during such service failures.
View
View
View
Understanding empowerment process of willingness to speak out on social media: Amplifying effect of supportive communication
Article
  • Nov 2021
This study examines how individuals’ opinion congruence with macro/micro-climates of opinion and others’ supportive online comments influence their willingness to speak out on social media. We conducted two experiments with 413 adults and found that people with macro-opinion congruence (i.e., societal majority) were more willing to speak out when perceiving supportive interactions from the majority of online commenters than no supportive interactions. Competence was a significant factor found to explain why people become emboldened to speak out under such conditions (i.e., macro-opinion congruence with majority online commenters’ supportive communication). However, counter to our original prediction, even if people perceive macro-opinion congruence, people with opinions incongruent with the majority online commenters are less willing to speak out when the minority online commenters (i.e., congruent with their own opinion) express supportive communication than no supportive communication. Although sense of community was found to be a significant mediating factor in explaining why people were more or less willing to speak out on social media in experiment 2, why supportive communication among minority online commenters diminished their willingness to speak out, rather than amplifying it, calls for further investigation. By incorporating factors like one’s competence and sense of community, we identified the underlying mechanism of social empowerment while revisiting and expanding the spiral of silence theory in the context of social media interactions.
View
Boycott them! No, boycott this! Do choice overload and small‐agent rationalization inhibit the signing of anti‐consumption petitions?
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2020
  • PSYCHOL MARKET
The Internet and social media have increased the number of organizations and individuals asking consumers to sign petitions against transgressing brands. This raises a question as to whether such increases in requests to sign a petition to support a boycott positively or negatively impact on consumer willingness to enact anti‐consumption. Via experiments, this study investigates the effect that choice overload has on consumers signing a petition in support of a boycott call. The findings establish that individuals who need to make a choice from numerous boycott calls (i.e., large choice‐sets) are less likely to sign a petition to support a boycott than individuals making a similar choice from a small number of boycott calls (i.e., small choice‐sets). The study further introduces a mediator that explains this effect. Compared with individuals facing a small choice‐set, those facing numerous options are more likely to experience the small‐agent rationalization, and thus, are less likely to sign the petition to support a boycott. The small‐agent rationalization (SAR) relates to one's acceptance of inequity in the world as well as perceptions of their own powerlessness. The study establishes the role of choice overload in boycott literature and empirically tests SAR as the process mechanism. Theoretical, practical, and policy implications are discussed.
View
Allow Offensive Speech --- Curb Abusive Speech?
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2019
  • SOCIETY
Free speech can be limited. The Founding Fathers did not give it the high standing many liberals accord it. Moreover, the courts have often limited it for various reasons, thus adding trigger warnings and safe spaces is quite within the main stream legal tradition. This is especially true about speech that causes significant harm, objectively verified. However, the Trump assault on free speech, especially the Press, it should be our highest priority for now to protect this crucial freedom.
View
Civility and Trust in Social Media
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2019
  • J ECON BEHAV ORGAN
Social media have been credited with the potential of reinvigorating trust by offering new opportunities for social and political participation. This view has been recently challenged by the rising phenomenon of online incivility, which has made the environment of social networking sites hostile to many users. We conduct a novel experiment in a Facebook setting to study how the effect of social media on trust varies depending on the civility or incivility of online interaction. We find that participants exposed to civil Facebook interaction are significantly more trusting. In contrast, when the use of Facebook is accompanied by the experience of online incivility, no significant changes occur in users' behavior. These results are robust to alternative configurations of the treatments.
View
Consumer responses to corporate social irresponsibility: The role of moral emotions, evaluations, and social cognitions: XIE and BAGOZZI
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2019
  • PSYCHOL MARKET
We investigate the mediating roles of moral emotions and attitudes between perceptions of corporate irresponsible actions, on the one hand, and consumer responses, on the other hand, and further examine their contingencies based on consumer social cognitions. Our findings show that, for corporate transgressions, multiple social cognitions (moral identity, relational and collective self‐concepts, and affective empathy) moderate the elicitation of negative moral emotions (contempt and anger) and overall evaluations (attitudes), which, in turn, lead to negative responses toward the company (negative word of mouth, complaint behaviors, and boycotting). Our study adds to extant research on corporate social irresponsibility by examining three generic reactions people have toward corporate social irresponsibility and demonstrating important boundary conditions. In addition, hypotheses are tested on a sample of adult consumers. Implications for communication by firms are considered.
View
The effect of activity identity fusion on negative consumer behavior
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2019
  • PSYCHOL MARKET
Negative consumer behavior is an important research topic as it explores consumer behaviors that threaten a brand's image and financial stability. However, prior research offers conflicting findings on whether a strong consumer‐brand relationship hurts or protects a brand after a market disruption or a brand transgression. To provide clarity on this issue, this work argues that disrupting the consumer‐activity relationship motivates consumers to reaffirm and protect their identity, thereby leading to negative consumer behavior. The data reveal that, after a brand‐initiated market disruption, consumers with high activity identity fusion are more likely to spread negative word‐of‐mouth, boycott the brand, and avoid repurchasing the brand in the future. Moreover, the data suggest that high brand identity fusion protects the brand during market disruptions; therefore, prior conflicting results may be due to the fact that the consumer‐activity relationship was not accounted for. Theoretically, this work establishes that consumers' relationship with their consumption activities has significant impacts on consumer behavior. Brand managers and marketers are urged to develop strategies that focus on strengthening the consumer‐brand relationship and not the consumer‐activity relationship.
View
View
View
Combating Fake News on Social Media with Source Ratings: The Effects of User and Expert Reputation Ratings
Article
  • Jul 2019
As a remedy against fake news on social media, we examine the effectiveness of three different mechanisms for source ratings that can be applied to articles when they are initially published: expert rating (where expert reviewers fact-check articles, which are aggregated to provide a source rating), user article rating (where users rate articles, which are aggregated to provide a source rating), and user source rating (where users rate the sources themselves). We conducted two experiments and found that source ratings influenced social media users’ beliefs in the articles and that the rating mechanisms behind the ratings mattered. Low ratings, which would mark the usual culprits in spreading fake news, had stronger effects than did high ratings. When the ratings were low, users paid more attention to the rating mechanism, and, overall, expert ratings and user article ratings had stronger effects than did user source ratings. We also noticed a second-order effect, where ratings on some sources led users to be more skeptical of sources without ratings, even with instructions to the contrary. A user’s belief in an article, in turn, influenced the extent to which users would engage with the article (e.g., read, like, comment and share). Lastly, we found confirmation bias to be prominent; users were more likely to believe — and spread — articles that aligned with their beliefs. Overall, our results show that source rating is a viable measure against fake news and propose how the rating mechanism should be designed.
View
Celebrity endorsement in the world of luxury fashion – when controversy can be beneficial
Article
  • Jul 2019
Can a negatively publicised celebrity endorser ever lead to favourable brand attitudes toward a luxury fashion product (i.e. a perfume)? An online experiment was conducted with a sample of 260 target-relevant female consumers where two factors were manipulated: the brand’s positioning objective (image reinforcement versus revitalisation) and the type of celebrity endorser (naturally versus incidentally controversial). Consumer attitudes towards the luxury fashion brand were generally more positive when the type of celebrity endorser was consistent with the brand’s positioning strategy, that is, when a naturally controversial celebrity endorses a brand with a reinforcement strategy and when an incidentally controversial celebrity endorses a brand with a revitalisation strategy. Furthermore, this effect was mediated by consumers’ appreciation of the celebrity-positioning match-up (i.e. the consistency between the celebrity’s persona and the brand’s strategy) but not by their perceptions of appropriateness (i.e. the traditional match-up hypothesis). Several implications suggested by these findings are developed.
View
Enhancing consumer engagement in an online brand community via user reputation signals: a multi-method analysis
Article
  • Nov 2018
Generating and maintaining consumers’ engagement in online brand communities is critical for marketing managers to enhance relationships and gain customer loyalty. In this research, we investigate how the type of signal used to indicate user reputation can enhance (or diminish) consumers’ community engagement. Specifically, we explore differences in perceptions of points (i.e., point accrual systems), labels (i.e., descriptive, hierarchical identification systems), and badges (i.e., descriptive, horizontally-ordered identification systems). We argue that reputation signals vary in the degree to which they can provide role clarity—the presence of user roles that deliver information about expected behaviors within a group. Across several studies, including a natural experiment using panel data, a survey of community members, and two controlled experiments, we show that signals that evoke a positive social role have the ability to drive greater engagement (i.e., creating discussions, posting comments, and future engagement intentions) than signals that do not provide role clarity. The effect is moderated by user tenure, such that new consumers’ engagement is particularly influenced by signal type. These findings have important implications for marketers as they use reputation signals as a strategic tool when managing online communities.
View