Understanding international perceptions of the severity of harmful content online

PLoS One. 2021 Aug 27;16(8):e0256762. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256762. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Online social media platforms constantly struggle with harmful content such as misinformation and violence, but how to effectively moderate and prioritize such content for billions of global users with different backgrounds and values presents a challenge. Through an international survey with 1,696 internet users across 8 different countries across the world, this empirical study examines how international users perceive harmful content online and the similarities and differences in their perceptions. We found that across countries, the perceived severity consistently followed an exponential growth as the harmful content became more severe, but what harmful content were perceived as more or less severe varied significantly. Our results challenge platform content moderation's status quo of using a one-size-fits-all approach to govern international users, and provide guidance on how platforms may wish to prioritize and customize their moderation of harmful content.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antisocial Personality Disorder / epidemiology*
  • Cannabis / adverse effects
  • Child
  • Child Abuse / prevention & control
  • Child Abuse / psychology
  • Child, Preschool
  • Communication
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Internet / statistics & numerical data*
  • Male
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • Social Media / statistics & numerical data*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Violence / prevention & control
  • Violence / psychology*
  • Violence / statistics & numerical data

Grants and funding

This work was funded by a grant from Facebook Research awarded to CF and JRB. https://research.fb.com. Researchers at Facebook provided feedback on the study design. The funder had no role in data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.