Does Content Moderation Lead Users Away from Fringe Movements? Evidence from a Recovery Community

TL;DR

This study examines how content moderation on Reddit, such as banning fringe communities, influences the recovery and deradicalization of individuals leaving fringe movements, showing bans can increase engagement in recovery communities without escalating toxicity.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that banning radical communities on Reddit can positively impact deradicalization efforts without causing increased toxicity.

Findings

Banning radical communities increases participation in recovery communities.

Quarantining communities has no significant effect.

Moderation does not lead to increased toxicity.

Abstract

Online platforms have sanctioned individuals and communities associated with fringe movements linked to hate speech, violence, and terrorism, but can these sanctions contribute to the abandonment of these movements? Here, we investigate this question through the lens of exredpill, a recovery community on Reddit meant to help individuals leave movements within the Manosphere, a conglomerate of fringe Web based movements focused on men's issues. We conduct an observational study on the impact of sanctioning some of Reddit's largest Manosphere communities on the activity levels and user influx of exredpill, the largest associated recovery subreddit. We find that banning a related radical community positively affects participation in exredpill in the period following the ban. Yet, quarantining the community, a softer moderation intervention, yields no such effects. We show that the effect induced by banning a radical community is stronger than for some of the widely discussed real-world events related to the Manosphere and that moderation actions against the Manosphere do not cause a spike in toxicity or malicious activity in exredpill. Overall, our findings suggest that content moderation acts as a deradicalization catalyst.