Building social capital to counter polarization and extremism? A comparative analysis of tech platforms' official blog posts

This research employs the concept of social capital to compare efforts that a range tech companies have claimed take counter polarization and extremism build resilience on their platforms. The dataset which our analysis is based made-up purposive sample official blog posts from three ‘older’ (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) ‘newer’ TikTok, Discord, Telegram) technology selected focused companies’ make platform safer, community resilience, violent and/or polarization, or mentioned related topics such as countering hate organizations, radicalization, misinformation. Revealed were seven themes incorporating, greater lesser extent, main types bonding, bridging linking). These granting user powers, strengthening existing communities, provision information education, building community, enhancing rights, keeping users safe, trust relationships with users. Analysis these showed while creation all was apparent, similar previous studies, dominated here too; there some discrepancies between generating activities framings versus platforms, other factors, including size company values are likely be equally more important; and, finally, attempts at online can negative well positive impacts regard extremism.