Self-Censorship on Facebook

By Sauvik Das, Adam D. I. Kramer. 2013

243 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report results from an exploratory analysis examining “last-minute” self-censorship, or content that is filtered after being written, on Facebook. We collected data from 3.9 million users over 17 days and associate self-censorship behavior with features describing users, their social graph, and the interactions between them. Our results indicate that 71% of users exhibited some level of last-minute self-censorship in the time period, and provide specific evidence supporting the theory that a user’s “perceived audience” lies at the heart of the issue: posts are censored more frequently than comments, with status updates and posts directed at groups censored most frequently of all sharing use cases investigated. Furthermore, we find that: people with more boundaries to regulate censor more; males censor more posts than females and censor even more posts with mostly male friends than do females, but censor no more comments than females; people who exercise more control over their audience censor more content; and, users with more politically and age diverse friends censor less, in general.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Communication, Sociology and Political Science

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Citations in the corpus

Social Data: Biases, Methodological Pitfalls, and Ethical Boundaries (2019, background): “…may not include people who only read content without writing), or due to self-censorship (e.g., not sharing or deleting a post) as a result of factors such as online harassment, privacy concerns, or some sort of social repercussion (Wang et al., 2011; Das and Kramer, 2013; Matias et al., 2015).”
To search or to ask: the routing of information needs between traditional search engines and social networks (2014, background): “H.5.m [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Miscellaneous General Terms Human Factors”
On Unravelling Opinions of Issue Specific-Silent Users in Social Media (2016, background): “As user-generated content is often visible to others, users may practise selfcensorship when deciding what content to share (Das and Kramer 2013; Sleeper et al. 2013).”
Unspeaking on Facebook? Testing network effects on self-censorship of political expressions in social network sites (2015, background): “Similarly, Das and Kramer (2013) show that Facebook users intentionally delete their own postings more frequently when their online network size is larger and comprised of many distinct groups.”
Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research (2014, background): “Similarly, 71% of Facebook users self-censor at least some of their posts, or edit them before they hit send (Das & Kramer, 2013).”
Surveillance, Panopticism, and Self-Discipline in the Digital Age (2018, background): “For example, a study by Das and Kramer (2013) confirmed the correlation between higher diversity of friendship circles with higher self-censorship.”
Digital Footprints: Opportunities and Challenges for Online Social Research (2014, background): “Das & Kramer (2013) examined inhibition in self-expression, but this was only possible because of the internal logging that takes place on messages that users write but ultimately choose not to post.”