How Ingroup and Outgroup Hostility Fuels Toxic Speech on Social Media
with
Dr. Alon Zoizner
January 29, 2025 at 14:15-15:45
Hybrid event: Zoom* and room 1013, Hamadrega building,
University of Haifa**
* Link to zoom will be active here at the time of event
** See map here.
For car entry permit to campus e-mail Michal at least one day before the event at: minervaextreme@univ.haifa.ac.il
Abstract
Why do social media users engage in toxic communication despite typically disapproving of such behavior? Adopting a two-dimensional definition of toxicity—impolite style and intolerant substance—we investigate this paradox by examining how exposure to toxicity from ingroup and outgroup accounts influences users’ own toxic behavior. We focus on Israel during 2023, a period marked by polarization and concerns about democratic backsliding. Using Twitter data collected from an original dataset and a replication dataset (across four waves and two waves respectively), we analyze ~1M tweets from 12,481 users, along with ~6M tweets from the 713,231 accounts they follow. We find that exposure to ingroup toxicity increases impolite and intolerant expressions, while exposure to outgroup toxicity shows smaller, less consistent effects. Users in homogeneous networks are particularly likely to adopt their ingroup’s toxic behavior. These results reveal how social media environments lead to gradual internalization of toxic communication as normative and even desirable.
Dr. Alon Zoizner is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa, Israel. He received his PhD from the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Alon’s research bridges digital technologies, modern information environments, and current political developments, utilizing computational content analysis, experiments, and surveys. His research projects focus on the relationship between the media (traditional and social) and political polarization, toxic communication, and political knowledge. His work was published in the Journal of Communication, Political Communication, British Journal of Political Science, Communication Research, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the International Journal of Press/Politics.
