Forging the Future of Work

Celebrity messages reduce online hate and limit its spread

Online hate spreads rapidly, yet little is known about whether preventive and scalable strategies can curb it. We conducted the largest randomized controlled trial of hate speech prevention to date: a 20-week messaging campaign on X in Nigeria targeting ethnic hate. 73,136 users who had previously engaged with hate speech were randomly assigned to receive prosocial video messages from Nigerian celebrities. The campaign reduced hate content by 2.5% to 5.5% during treatment, with about 75% of the reduction persisting over the following four months. Reaching a larger share of a user's audience reduced amplification of that user's hate posts among both treated and untreated users, cutting hate reposts by over 50% for the most exposed accounts. Scalable messaging can limit online hate without removing content.

Eaman Jahani, Assistant Professor, UMD
Blas Kolic, Post-doc, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Manuel Tonneau, PhD Student, Oxford University
Hause Lin, Post-doc, MIT
Daniel Barkoczi, University of Southern Denmark
Edwin Ikhuoria, Middlesex University
Victor Orozco, World Bank
Samuel Fraiberger, World Bank and NYU

• Digital Platforms
• Misinformation and Disinformation
• Social Media