This article examines the discursive practices of Facebook users who use the platform to express racist views. We analyzed 51,991 public comments posted to 119 news stories about race, racism, or ethnicity on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News Facebook page. We examined whether users who hold racist viewpoints (the vocal minority) are less likely to express views that go against the majority view for fear of social isolation. According to the “spiral of silence” theory, the vocal minority would presumably fear this isolation effect. However, our analysis shows that on Facebook, a predominantly nonanonymous and moderated platform, the vocal minority are comfortable expressing unpopular views, questioning the explanatory power of this popular theory in the online context. Based on automated analysis of 8,636 comments, we found 64 percent mentioned race or ethnicity, and 18 percent exhibited some form of othering. A manual coding of 1,161 comments showed that 18 percent exhibited some form of othering, and 25 percent countered the racist discourse. In sum, while Facebook provides space to express racist discourse, users also turn to this platform to counter the hateful narratives.

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在Facebook上表达和挑战种族主义话语：社交媒体如何削弱“沉默螺旋”理论

本文探讨了使用该平台表达种族主义观点的Facebook用户的话语实践。我们分析了加拿大广播公司发布的关于种族，种族或族裔的119个新闻故事的51,991条公共评论新闻Facebook页面。我们检查了持有种族主义观点的用户（少数族裔）是否不太可能表达与多数观点相反的观点，因为他们担心社会孤立。根据“沉默的螺旋”理论，少数人可能会担心这种隔离效果。但是，我们的分析表明，在以非匿名和主持人为主的平台Facebook上，少数族裔人士很乐意表达不受欢迎的观点，从而质疑了这种流行理论在网络环境中的解释力。根据对8,636条评论的自动分析，我们发现64％的人提到种族或种族，而18％的人表现出某种其他形式。手动编码的1,161条评论显示，有18％的人表现出某种形式的其他表达，而25％的人反对种族主义话语。总共，