‘We Want You To Be A Proud Boy’: How Social Media Facilitates Political Intimidation and Violence
By Paul M. Barrett September 2024
Based on a review of more than 400 social science studies, a new HFG-funded report from the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights details how social media use can enable or contribute to political strife.
Amid a volatile election season, the report, ‘We Want You To Be A Proud Boy’: How Social Media Facilitates Political Intimidation and Violence, outlines the steps social media companies like Facebook, TikTok and Telegram can take to reduce their contribution to increasing levels of political intimidation and violence across the U.S. and around the world.
“While social media platforms aren’t solely to blame for increasing political strife, they often contribute to the growing problem,” said Paul Barrett, the report’s primary author and deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
The report is part of HFG’s Violence, Politics & Democracy initiative, a multi-year project examining how these phenomena interact in mature democracies to understand better and counter political violence and other forces that damage democratic norms and institutions, imperiling the safety of citizens.
