Retributive and Restorative Interventions against Uncivil Behaviour Online

And the final speaker in this ICA 2024 conference session is by Pengfei Zhao, who is interested in the balance between retributive and restorative reactions to toxic online comments. This is likely also to be influenced by participants awareness of the existence of a broader group of community onlookers who follow exchanges between offenders and those who object to their offences.

The most common online reaction to problematic content is retributive: using offensive language to respond to previous offensive content, and thus potentially kicking of a like-for-like cycle of retribution. Onlookers tend to disapprove of such unproductive and uncivil exchanges.

An alternative framework to this is restorative: this seeks to repair harm by balancing the needs of all parties and reestablishing a consensus about shared moral values; it seeks to encourage the offender to apologise for their actions and thereby affirm shared values. But how can such more prosocial behaviour be encouraged? Is this even possible if the offender is perceived as incorrigible?

The present study used an experimental setting with some 1,300 participants that explored both retributive and restorative interventions with first-time as well as repeat offenders. Onlookers found that restorative objections better served justice, and were more likely to upvote and less likely to downvote or flag such interventions. Perceived justice functioned as the primary mechanism that led them to favour such objections, and enjoy the simulated online community.

The more incorrigible the offender appeared to be, however, the less onlookers preferred such restorative interventions. In these cases, retributive responses were preferred.