Should social media platforms intervene when communities repeatedly break rules? What actions can they consider? In light of this hotly debated issue, platforms have begun experimenting with softer alternatives to outright bans. We examine one such intervention called quarantining, that impedes direct access to and promotion of controversial communities. Specifically, we present two case studies of what happened when Reddit quarantined the influential communities r/TheRedPill (TRP) and r/The_Donald (TD). Working with over 85M Reddit posts, we apply causal inference methods to examine the quarantine's effects on TRP and TD. We find that the quarantine made it more difficult to recruit new members: new user influx to TRP and TD decreased by 79.5% and 58%, respectively. Despite quarantining, existing users' misogyny and racism levels remained unaffected. We conclude by reflecting on the effectiveness of this design friction in limiting the influence of toxic communities and discuss broader implications for content moderation.

中文翻译：

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被隔离！检查社区范围内的适度干预对 Reddit 的影响

当社区反复违反规则时，社交媒体平台是否应该进行干预？他们可以考虑哪些行动？鉴于这个激烈争论的问题，平台已经开始尝试使用更温和的替代方案来替代彻底的禁令。我们研究了一种称为隔离的干预措施，它阻碍了对有争议社区的直接访问和推广。具体来说，我们展示了两个案例研究，当 Reddit 隔离有影响力的社区 r/TheRedPill (TRP) 和 r/The_Donald (TD) 时发生了什么。我们使用超过 8500 万个 Reddit 帖子，应用因果推理方法来检查隔离对 TRP 和 TD 的影响。我们发现隔离使招募新成员变得更加困难：TRP 和 TD 的新用户流入分别下降了 79.5% 和 58%。尽管进行了隔离，现有用户的 厌女症和种族主义水平没有受到影响。最后，我们反思了这种设计摩擦在限制有毒社区影响方面的有效性，并讨论了对内容审核的更广泛影响。