The Internet can seem like a real s—thole sometimes. But that’s just a perception. A relative handful of loud, toxic a—holes really poisons the well, leading to perceptions of internet toxicity being more widespread than it actually is. That is, at least, according to new research out of Stanford University.
The study, published in PNAS Nexus, found that Americans dramatically overestimate how many people are responsible for toxic behavior online. Surveying more than 1,000 participants and comparing their guesses with real platform data, researchers discovered that people think nearly half of Reddit users have posted hateful or aggressive comments.
The real number? According to the researcher’s observations, it is just over 3 percent. That’s a 13-fold overestimate. If your mechanic quoted you a 13-fold overestimate on an oil change, you would take your business elsewhere.
New Research Says the Internet Isn’t as Toxic as It Feels
The same pattern showed up with misinformation. Participants believed 47 percent of Facebook users had shared false news.
The actual figure: 8.5 percent. Americans also thought that 1/3 of users were of the hardcore “super-sharers” of fake news, essentially carriers of a brain virus that they took glee in spreading far and wide. The truth is much less dramatic: fewer than 0.5 percent of internet users fit that description.
Researchers say the problem has nothing to do with people misidentifying toxicity online. We all know what it looks and sounds like when someone is being a real piece of s—t. The mistake we make comes later, when we assume that those comments come from a bigger chunk of the population when it’s actually a teeny tiny yet extremely loud and hyperactive minority of d—kheads and losers.
On Reddit, the researchers found that three percent of users who post toxic content generate about 1/3 of all comments. If your perception is that most people on the internet are vile monsters poisoning the well of online discourse, it only seems that way because three percent of people just won’t shut the f—k up.
Algorithms amplify that outrage. Instead of burying it, thus doing us all a favor, algorithms that care only about engagement statistics behind a post. They don’t consider the content itself and end up tossing the most toxic stuff onto a marquee for all to see.
Team that up with our human tendency to only remember the negative stuff in life and the fact that online anonymity makes personalities less sticky, and you’ve got a recipe for thinking the internet is a worse place than it actually is.
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