The Effect of NetzDG on Social Media in Germany

Last registered on September 26, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Effect of NetzDG on Social Media in Germany
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014385
Initial registration date
September 20, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 26, 2024, 12:25 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Rotterdam School of Management

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
ZEW Mannheim

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-08-26
End date
2025-03-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This experiment is a part of a larger study which uses observational data from Twitter to measure the effect of German regulation of hate speech (the Network Enforcement Act) on the prevalence of hate in tweets. In our observational study, we measure a decrease in toxicity in tweets tackling sensitive migration and religion related topics due to the implementation of NetzDG in Germany in 2018. In the subsequent experiment, we would like to study if users of Twitter would really perceive the difference in toxicity on Twitter after the law was implemented. We randomly assign users to seeing the Twitter timelines simulated using tweets from before and after the regulation and measure the difference in toxicity as perceived by the experiment participants.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Andres, Raphaela and Olga Slivko. 2024. "The Effect of NetzDG on Social Media in Germany." AEA RCT Registry. September 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14385-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-10
Intervention End Date
2025-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The key outcome is the evaluation of each participant for the presence of toxicity on each of fours simulated Twitter timelines that the participant is exposed to. It is measured on a Likert scale from 1 (not likely at all) to 7 (very likely).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We create eight simulated timelines, each containing six tweets. We randomly allocate our experiment participants from Prolific platform to see 4 of these timelines and we ask to evaluate how likely is the presence of toxicity in these timelines.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomisation is performed on Qualtrics.
Randomization Unit
Each participant receives four random timelines out of eight in total.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
100 participants
Sample size: planned number of observations
app. 400 obs.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
100 participants are offered to evaluate fours timelines each (from before and after the implementation of NetzDG).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Erasmus University Rotterdam
IRB Approval Date
2024-07-16
IRB Approval Number
ETH2324-0747