Toxic Content and User Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from a Field Experiment

George Beknazar-Yuzbashev, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Jesse McCrosky and Mateusz Stalinski

No 11644, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Most social media users have encountered harassment online, but there is scarce evidence of how this type of toxic content impacts engagement. In a pre-registered browser extension field experiment, we randomly hid toxic content for six weeks on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Lowering exposure to toxicity reduced advertising impressions, time spent, and other measures of engagement, and reduced the toxicity of user-generated content. A survey experiment provides evidence that toxicity triggers curiosity and that engagement and welfare are not necessarily aligned. Taken together, our results suggest that platforms face a trade-off between curbing toxicity and increasing engagement.

Keywords: toxic content; moderation; social media; user engagement; browser experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D12 D83 D90 I31 L82 L86 M37 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hap, nep-pay and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11644

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