Goals of Counterspeech
Around the world, tens of thousands of people seem to flout the adage “don’t feed the trolls” regularly, by responding to online expressions of hatred. They’re actually feeding someone other than trolls though, with the goal of improving discourse at large.
Among dozens of counterspeakers we’ve interviewed, the vast majority say they do it to reach spectators – the people who read both the original posts and the counterspeakers’ responses. We call this group the audience.
Counterspeakers try to influence audiences in the belief that their members hold more moderate views than the original posters (“trolls”), and therefore are easier to persuade. The number of people in the audience is also usually much larger than the number of people who post hateful content, so they present an opportunity to influence far more people.
This is a striking feature of much online communication; the audience for any publicly-visible comment is often large, in part because people can continue to read it long after it was originally posted.
Within their overarching goal, there are nuances around which types of spectators counterspeakers are hoping to reach and how they believe doing so will help improve discourse:
- Some hope to change the views of spectators in the “movable middle” — people who don’t have strong beliefs about a topic.
- Some attempt to reach those who agree with them, but don’t yet dare to express those views online, since recruiting new counterspeakers increases the amount of counterspeech.
- Still others want to mitigate the negative impacts of harmful or hateful speech, by supporting members of the audience who have been targeted by it.
Finally, some counterspeakers try to reach people who spread hatred, to change either their beliefs or behavior. Some want to shame, punish, or simply annoy the person who posted hateful content. Although this might not convince someone to change their beliefs, it might have an effect on behavior. Others take an educational approach, trying to change the beliefs of those to whom they respond.
Goals of Counterspeech
Around the world, tens of thousands of people seem to flout the adage “don’t feed the trolls” regularly, by responding to online expressions of hatred. They’re actually feeding someone other than trolls though, with the goal of improving discourse at large.
Among dozens of counterspeakers we’ve interviewed, the vast majority say they do it to reach spectators – the people who read both the original posts and the counterspeakers’ responses. We call this group the audience.
Counterspeakers try to influence audiences in the belief that their members hold more moderate views than the original posters (“trolls”), and therefore are easier to persuade. The number of people in the audience is also usually much larger than the number of people who post hateful content, so they present an opportunity to influence far more people.
This is a striking feature of much online communication; the audience for any publicly-visible comment is often large, in part because people can continue to read it long after it was originally posted.
Within their overarching goal, there are nuances around which types of spectators counterspeakers are hoping to reach and how they believe doing so will help improve discourse:
- Some hope to change the views of spectators in the “movable middle” — people who don’t have strong beliefs about a topic.
- Some attempt to reach those who agree with them, but don’t yet dare to express those views online, since recruiting new counterspeakers increases the amount of counterspeech.
- Still others want to mitigate the negative impacts of harmful or hateful speech, by supporting members of the audience who have been targeted by it.
Finally, some counterspeakers try to reach people who spread hatred, to change either their beliefs or behavior. Some want to shame, punish, or simply annoy the person who posted hateful content. Although this might not convince someone to change their beliefs, it might have an effect on behavior. Others take an educational approach, trying to change the beliefs of those to whom they respond.
