Redact.dev: Provoking Politics

The team at Cherry Digital was approached by Redact.dev, a service for automatically deleting social media history, to conduct a survey to find out how many users knowingly post polarizing content about politics online, with the explicit intention to incite a reaction from others with opposing views. The story was featured on FOX31 Denver KDVR-TV with a great video about the study, covering the results and mapping them across states.

Redact’s survey of 5,502 social media users found that in 19 states, democrats were most likely to do just that – post polarizing content about politics on their socials with the explicit intention of inciting a reaction from opposition views. However, in 18 states, independent voters were most likely to do this, while republican voters in 12 states were most likely to post this kind of content online. Only 1 state had a result that was split.

KDVR-TV’s video explains the interesting point that voters don’t always pick social media fights in states where they’re the dominant party. This analysis found that the most likely scenario is democrats posting inflammatory content with the intention of inciting a reaction from those with opposing views in republican states – this was the case in 10 different states. The next most likely scenario was independent voters posting this kind of content for this reason in democratic states – this was the case in 9 states. The third most likely scenario was democrats posting politically provocative content on their socials in democratic states (8, to be precise). 

Redact’s campaign about posting politically provocative content on social media was also covered by Prescott eNews, which featured an in-depth description of the study, along with several backlinks.

Redact.dev: Internet Trolls

The Cherry Digital team also ran another highly successful campaign for Redact.dev to do with internet trolling. Internet trolling is, unfortunately, part and parcel of many online activities nowadays. Any user brave enough to publicize their socials – like Twitter account or YouTube channel – oftentimes has to simply accept that comments from complete strangers are part of the deal too. And although some comments might be criticism (constructive or not) on the content that’s put out there, there is a line between offering this kind of critique, or opposing view; and being a straight-up internet bully just for the sake of it. This is the concept known as trolling and it would seem the main reason users do it is because of the blissful anonymity of hiding behind a phone or computer screen. No one knows who you are, which can free you to release a stream of obscenities, insults, inflammatory opinions and more – sounds pretty liberating, doesn’t it? Not if you’re on the receiving end, of course. But how many of us, who ostensibly think we’re decent human beings, would ever do such a thing?

The campaign surveyed 3,846 social media users across the US to determine how many openly admit to having internet trolled someone in the past. Overall, it was discovered that almost 1 in 5 (17%) social media users admit they have trolled someone on the internet in the past. When these figures were analyzed across states, West Virginia had the highest percentage of internet trolls – 27%. Comparatively, this figure was lowest in Delaware, with 5% of social media users having admitted to internet trolling in the past.

This campaign gained great traction in the media with features in both national and local press, including: iHeart, khon2, Orlando Sentinel, Audacy, Herald Sun, Yahoo, WJBQ and The Bay Net, to name a few.

Redact.dev: Digital Death

Another survey was also conducted on behalf of Redact, to do with social media users’ post history. Have you ever wondered what may become of your social media footprint after your death? Many internet users have had active social media accounts for a number of years – from the days of their very first MySpace and Tumblr profiles even. We were warned of the permanence of having an online presence, therefore, if these accounts haven’t purposefully been deactivated and deleted, chances are there are still traces of these users that exist online. On a longer timescale (for example, a century from now), the likelihood of your current social media accounts still existing on the internet is high.

This campaign wanted to determine how many users think their entire post history should be erased in the event of their death… The survey of 5,444 social media users across the US discovered that almost 2 in 3 (66%) social media users think their entire post history should be erased in the event of their death. Additionally, it was found that more than 1 in 10 users admit they’re concerned about existing social media content they posted in the past, that might now be considered contentious…

When it came to these figures compared across the sample of men and women, men were slightly more supportive (69%) of their social media post history being deleted in the event of their death, as compared to 62% of women.

The Digital Death campaign achieved great coverage in the media, including local and national publications who featured the story on their sites, referring back to Redact.dev’s website. These publications included the likes of Arkansas Online, NWA Online, iHeart, La Noticia and The 106.3 Buzz, amongst a host of others.

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