The (limited) effects of target characteristics on public opinion of hate speech laws

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/j4nuc
• Publication Date: 2022-06-08T09:36:12Z
• Authors: Jesper Rasmussen
• Keywords: Campaign finance

Policymakers and social media platforms face increasing pressure to regulate hate speech. Regulating speech is controversial, in part because partisans supposedly disagree about who laws should protect. Utilizing two large conjoint experiments Denmark the United States, this article demonstrates that ordinary citizens support restricting extreme speech, regardless of it targets. Support for regulation shaped by severity hate, while target characteristics have small but asymmetrical effects across parties. Moreover, data show no evidence are less restrictive targeting out-partisans. This suggests existing research overestimates partisan differences on abstract questions conflate with whom These findings suggest content moderation policies could emphasize as key criterion foster bipartisan support.