Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/266349 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
New Working Paper Series No. 324
Publisher: 
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, Chicago, IL
Abstract: 
Social media platforms ban users and remove posts to moderate their content. This "speech policing" remains controversial because little is known about its consequences and the costs and benefits for different individuals. I conduct two pre-registered field experiments on Twitter to examine the effect of moderating hate speech on user behavior and welfare. Randomly reporting posts for violating the rules against hateful conduct increases the likelihood that Twitter removes them. Reporting does not affect the activity on the platform of the posts' authors or their likelihood of reposting hate, but it does increase the activity of those attacked by the posts. These results are consistent with a model in which content moderation is a quality decision for platforms that increases user engagement and hence advertising revenue. The second experiment shows that changing users' perceived content removal does not change their willingness to pause using social media, a measure of consumer surplus. My results imply that content moderation does not necessarily moderate users, but it can marginally increase advertising revenue. It can be consistent with both profit and welfare maximization as long as out-of-platform externalities are small.
Subjects: 
social media
moderation
report
hate speech
experiment
welfare
JEL: 
C93
D12
D85
D90
I31
J15
L82
L86
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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