Aarushi Kalra on Digital Polarization and Toxicity, Understanding User Behavior, Social Media Algorithms, and Platform Incentives

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I spoke with Aarushi Kalra Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Brown University. We discussed her job market paper, “Hate in the Time of Algorithms: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment on Online Behavior.” We talked about the demand and supply of toxicity against minorities on social media platforms, user behavior, platform behavior, real world segregation due to ethnic violence, and much more. 

Recorded October 24th, 2024.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:00:58) - Grand Tamasha

(00:02:31) - Exploring How Social Media Users Engage with Toxic Content

(00:06:06) - Understanding the Drivers of Toxic Speech on the Internet

(00:08:50) - Definitions of Toxic Content

(00:11:05) - Scale of Data and Choice of Language

(00:12:23) - Impact of Recommendation Algorithms on User Engagement

(00:16:27) - Key Findings on Toxic Content Exposure and Sharing

(00:22:08) - Interpreting How Personalization Shapes Engagement in Toxic Social Media Content

(00:25:31) - How Recognizing the Agency and Sophistication of Users Shapes Interpretive Models

(00:31:45) - The Challenges of Platform Regulation

(00:34:04) - The Challenges of Creating Interventions to Address Toxic Content

(00:35:46) - Social Media as Normalizing Toxic Speech

(00:38:09) - The Route of the Ram Rath Yatra As Lens on Segregation

(00:48:58) - Outro