Cuts down on trolling behavior without shaming users
Untested
Inference
Evoke User's Visibility
This is an email that is sent to the user, which highlights the offending post and asks if the user's account has been compromised (and can encourage them to change their password). This is a tool at moderators' disposal for when they see one-off behavior that violates community guidelines.
This allows people who have posted hostile content to modify their behavior to fit community guidelines while saving face.
It can, hopefully, cut down on online harassment, while also avoiding resentment against the platform for enforcement of its rules.
This email should be sent to the user after content moderation methods have detected they have engaged in behaviors which violate community guidelines.
Many psychologists believe that one of the biggest drivers of violence of all kinds is shame. Interventions that reduce harms and avoid shaming the perpetrator may have a significant role in preventing those users from even more toxic behavior in the future.
This approach risks backfiring in multiple ways.
In the event that a moderator flags a post as being a suspected hack, the contributor may view this as a dismissal of their input. They may further cause them to react negatively, who may genuinely feel that harsh language is necessary for the given topic at hand.
A scenario, wherein harsh—but sincere—posts are met with this intervention from a community moderator, is foreseeable. Such a scenario would undermine this intervention's continued use in that case.
Should this intervention be available for use, moderators should exercise immense care before leveraging it, and only use it in a highly targeted way.
Of course, as this intervention remains untested, such a backfiring effect also remains strictly conjecture.
A grade of Inference is for proposed interventions that lack research of their own, but that could work by way of analogous studies, expert opinions, or first principles.
While this is, technically, the lowest evidentiary grade that we can afford an intervention while still including it in the library, this is not meant to discourage. On the contrary! This grade is very much an invitation to explore and experiment with it further.
Do you think this intervention could have more benefits, unacknowledged drawbacks, or other inaccuracies that we've neglected to mention here?
We always welcome more evidence and rigorous research to back up, debunk, or augment what we know.
If you want to be a part of that effort, we'd love to have your help!
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