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Fostering Productive Conversations About Race Online

New research from SPARQ shows how conversations about race and racism can be silenced online and what social media platforms can do about it.

Discrimination disclosures — sharing real life encounters with racism online — face suppression by both human and algorithm-based moderation on social media. New research from Postdoc Fellow Cinoo Lee, Postdoc Affiliate Kristina Gligorić, Grad Affiliates Ria Kalluri and Maggie Harrington, and the SPARQ team finds that that people are nearly 3 times more likely to flag a post about experiencing racial discrimination as violating platform guidelines than negative interpersonal experiences that do not mention race. This can erode users of color's sense of belonging in both online and offline communities. In another new study, Faculty Affiliate Kiara Sanchez and the SPARQ team find that if users observe others dismissing vs. validating online discrimination disclosures, those users will also be more likely to discount discrimination.

One promising remedy for platforms is to revise community guidelines to help users and moderators better assess whether posts or comments mentioning race or racism actually violate them. Social media can be a powerful tool for fostering productive dialogue about race. Creating new interventions and policies to address bias, while elevating the voices of people of color, is a necessary step.

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