The Impact of Culture on Online Toxic Disinhibition: Trolling in India and the USA Pnina Fichman Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, Indiana University fichman@iu.edu Maanvi Rathi Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, Indiana University mrathi@iu.edu Abstract The pervasiveness of online trolling has been attributed to the effect of online toxic disinhibition, suggesting that perpetrators behave in less socially desirable ways online than they do offline. It is possible that this disinhibition effect allows for everyone to start on a level playing field online, regardless of race, gender, or nationality, but it is likewise possible that the disinhibition effect is context-dependent and sensitive to socio-cultural variations. We aim to explore if toxic online disinhibition effects depend on national culture and gender by examining the extent of trolling towards tweets by Americans and Indians, from both genders. Content analysis of 3,000 Twitter posts reveals that significantly more trolling comments were posted on tweets by Americans than by Indians, and on tweets by women than men. We conclude that the online disinhibition effect may exacerbate, replicate, or mediate existing socio-cultural differences, but it does not eliminate them. 1. Introduction With fewer global barriers to access and use of social media platforms, trolling is now everywhere. More than 500 million tweets are posted daily, spreading misinformation, disinformation and trolling, leading Twitter to announce new ways to combat the latter [1]. These trolling behaviors, like other less socially desirable activities, are largely enabled by the toxic online disinhibition effect [2]. Online, people feel less visible, more anonymous, and much of their interactions with others are asynchronous, as a result their sense of power dynamics is distorted, and they are more likely to disassociate themselves from their online actions once they are offline. This leads to an increase in online behaviors that are not regulated in the same way as real life; then, more trolling, harassment and abuse are noticeable on online platforms. As trolling behaviors spread widely, research follows with significant efforts to detect trolling, identify trolls’ motivations, behaviors, and tactics, to understand the impact of trolling on individuals and communities, and unpack perceptions of and reactions to trolling [e.g., 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. What becomes clear is that online trolling is multidimensional and context-dependent, thus varying from one setting to another [8]. Whereas less socially desirable behaviors more prominently surface online, it is possible that trolling may exacerbate, replicate, or mediate existing socio-cultural differences. It is also possible that certain attributes of trolling targets play a role in trolling as well: “harassment on the basis of race and gender is indicative of trolling” [7, p. 1]; yet, research mostly focuses on online perpetrators. Early research on the impact of trolling targets on the extent and type of trolling, reveals that not only the gender of the perpetrator, but also the gender of target plays a role in online trolling [e.g., 9, 10] . Individuals from different genders troll differently [e.g., 11], and women have been the target of more online trolling than men [9]. Other attributes of trolling targets and perpetrators may have an impact on the extent and type of trolling as well. For example, it is possible that trolling targets in different countries will have different experiences. The theory of cultural relativity suggests that different cultures have their own standards of acceptable behaviors [10]. Online disinhibition is partially enabled by reduced status, power, and authority, compared to face-to-face [2], and since status and power distance vary between countries [12], national culture of trolling targets cannot be ignored. Power differences online may be as prominent or even more noticeable than they are offline, and trolling targets in high power distance cultures (India, for example) may have different trolling experiences than those in low power distance cultures (USA, for example). However, while power dynamics Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2022 Page 2890 URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10125/79691 978-0-9981331-5-7 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)