Incivility, that is, the breaking of social norms of conversation, is evidently prevalent in online political communication. While a growing literature provides evidence on the prevalence of incivility in different online venues, it is still unclear where and to what extent Internet users are exposed to incivility. This paper takes a comparative approach to assess the levels of incivility across contexts, content and personal characteristics. The pre-registered analysis uses detailed web browsing histories, including public Facebook posts and tweets seen by study participants, in combination with surveys collected during the German federal election 2021 ( N = 739). The level of incivility is predicted using Google’s Perspective API and compared across contexts (platforms and campaign periods), content features, and individual-level variables. The findings show that incivility is particularly strong on Twitter and more prevalent in comments than original posts/tweets on Facebook and Twitter. Content featuring political content and actors is more uncivil, whereas personal characteristics are less relevant predictors. The finding that user-generated political content is the most likely source of individuals’ exposure to incivility adds to the understanding of social media’s impact on public discourse.

中文翻译：

---

不文明行为的比较：背景、内容和个人特征如何预测接触不文明内容

粗鲁行为，即违反社会对话规范的行为，在网络政治交流中显然很普遍。尽管越来越多的文献提供了不同网络场所中不文明行为普遍存在的证据，但仍不清楚互联网用户在何处以及在何种程度上遭受不文明行为。本文采用比较方法来评估不同背景、内容和个人特征的不文明程度。预先注册的分析使用详细的网络浏览历史记录，包括研究参与者看到的公共 Facebook 帖子和推文，并结合 2021 年德国联邦选举期间收集的调查 (N = 739)。使用 Google 的 Perspective API 预测不文明程度，并在不同环境（平台和活动期间）、内容特征和个人层面变量之间进行比较。调查结果显示，Twitter 上的不文明行为尤其严重，而且评论中的不文明行为比 Facebook 和 Twitter 上的原始帖子/推文更为普遍。以政治内容和演员为特色的内容更加不文明，而个人特征则不太相关。用户生成的政治内容最有可能是个人接触不文明行为的根源，这一发现加深了人们对社交媒体对公共话语影响的理解。