Reclaim Social Day

Facts About Reclaim Social Day

Emotional Contagion Makes Positivity Spread Online  

Experimental research on Facebook involving nearly 700,000 users found that emotions expressed in posts are “contagious”: when people saw fewer negative posts in their News Feed, they themselves used fewer negative words and slightly more positive ones, and vice versa.

This demonstrated that even small shifts in what users see can subtly alter the overall emotional tone of conversations across a platform.  

A Minority of Users Generates Most Online Abuse  

Analyses of platforms such as Twitter (now X) and Facebook repeatedly show that abusive content is heavily concentrated among a small fraction of highly active accounts.

For instance, a study of political discussions in the U.K. found that about 0.7% of users were responsible for roughly 70% of abusive tweets directed at politicians, indicating that online toxicity is often driven by a relatively small but vocal group rather than the general user base.  

Online Harassment Is Widespread but Unevenly Experienced  

Survey research by the Pew Research Center reports that about 41% of U.S. adults have personally experienced some form of online harassment, and 75% have seen it happen to others, with young adults and marginalized groups more likely to face severe forms such as sexual harassment or physical threats.

These patterns highlight how toxicity in digital spaces disproportionately targets certain communities, shaping who feels welcome and safe to participate.  

Positive News Travels More Deeply Through Social Networks  

A large-scale analysis of news diffusion on Twitter by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) found that content eliciting high-arousal emotions—particularly awe and inspiration—tends to be shared more and travel further than neutral information.

While outrage can also drive sharing, stories framed around hope or admiration often propagate through more layers of a network, suggesting that uplifting narratives can achieve substantial reach when users choose to amplify them.  

Prosocial Posts Can Nudge Real-World Giving  

Field experiments by nonprofit researchers have shown that social media messages emphasizing specific, hopeful outcomes and social proof (such as showing that friends have donated) significantly increase charitable giving and volunteering sign-ups compared with generic appeals.

One large Facebook-based study found that donation rates rose when people saw peers share their contributions publicly, demonstrating that visible prosocial behavior online can spur concrete offline action.  

Civility Policies and Moderation Reduce Toxicity at Scale  

When large platforms introduce clearer rules and active moderation against harassment, abuse drops measurably.

For example, after Reddit banned several harassment-focused subcommunities in 2015, a peer‑reviewed study found a sustained decrease in hate speech across the site, with many previously abusive users either leaving or reducing toxic behavior.

This suggests that structural changes, not just individual choices, can shift social media toward healthier interactions.  

Algorithm Design Shapes What Users Perceive as “Normal” Online  

Studies of recommendation systems show that algorithms optimizing for engagement tend to surface emotionally charged, polarizing, or sensational content because it reliably captures attention.

Research on YouTube and Facebook feeds has found that, over time, these systems can skew users’ perception of what is typical or acceptable discourse, normalizing more extreme or hostile posts unless platforms deliberately adjust ranking criteria to account for well-being and safety.