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arXiv · 2509.09921

A Taxonomy of Response Strategies to Toxic Online Content: Evaluating the Evidence

Lisa Schirch·Kristina Radivojevic·Cathy Buerger
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Abstract

Toxic Online Content (TOC) includes messages on digital platforms that are harmful, hostile, or damaging to constructive public discourse. Individuals, organizations, and LLMs respond to TOC through counterspeech or counternarrative initiatives. There is a wide variation in their goals, terminology, response strategies, and methods of evaluating impact. This paper identifies a taxonomy of online response strategies, which we call Online Discourse Engagement (ODE), to include any type of online speech to build healthier online public discourse. The literature on ODE makes contradictory assumptions about ODE goals and rarely distinguishes between them or rigorously evaluates their effectiveness. This paper categorizes 25 distinct ODE strategies, from humor and distraction to empathy, solidarity, and fact-based rebuttals, and groups these into a taxonomy of five response categories: defusing and distracting, engaging the speaker's perspective, identifying shared values, upstanding for victims, and information and fact-building. The paper then systematically reviews the evidence base for each of these categories. By clarifying definitions, cataloging response strategies, and providing a meta-analysis of research papers on these strategies, this article aims to bring coherence to the study of ODE and to strengthen evidence-informed approaches for fostering constructive ODE.

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Lisa Schirch, Kristina Radivojevic, Cathy Buerger. 2025-10-13. A Taxonomy of Response Strategies to Toxic Online Content: Evaluating the Evidence. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09921

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