Counterspeech Techniques Against Hate Speech as a Form of Incivility in Social Media: A Comprehensive Taxonomy Based on a Systematic Literature Review
Holger Heppner, Birte Schiffhauer, Udo Seelmeyer · 2025
Based on a systematic literature review, this paper presents a comprehensive taxonomy of counterspeech techniques to address hate speech as a form of incivility in social media. Intervention techniques were extracted from reviewed articles, sorted, and clustered in a systematic, iterative process, resulting in a taxonomy with 20 distinct techniques organized into nine strategies and four overarching approaches: Behavioral, Emotional, Cognitive, and Mechanical.The review included literature in English and German published between 2004 and 2024, describing specific intervention techniques against hate speech as a form of incivility. An initial search conducted in March 2024 yielded 2009 entries, of which 44 articles were included. An updated search in November 2024 produced 324 additional findings, resulting in nine further inclusions. In total, 53 articles were reviewed to construct the taxonomy.This taxonomy deconstructs the broader concept of counterspeech into its elemental techniques, offering a clearer definition and enabling further investigations particularly into the effectiveness of different techniques. Furthermore, it offers practical value for educational purposes and the promotion of constructive online discourse.