others echoing their countering view. This was seen, for example, under the posts such as the “Don’t call me kalar” campaign and same-sex marriage editorials, when high volumes of negative comments seemed to crowd out positive comments. Interviewees also offered a perspective on how high volumes of hate-speech comments may deter people in already marginalized positions from pushing back. They noted that the emotional cost to responding can be high when the negativity of news/events is amplified by hate speech comments. They also mentioned the likelihood that they would be retaliated against if they responded in places with large volumes of hate speech comments. These two factors are related: for many, the cost of trauma from likely escalation is not worth it. This was especially a concern for women who reported that comments with sexually abusive words commonly target them5. If Facebook algorithms and deliberate targeting are indeed creating a higher visibility of hatespeech comments, positive content may miss key audiences or be overwhelmed. This suggests that certain campaigns can be easily undermined online. None of this, however, is mutually exclusive with the potential for positive anchor posts to act as an inspiration. The important implication of this observation is that even as such posts can act as an inspiration they may also gain less visibility than they should, or their effects may be drowned out. As mentioned above, this condition will further create many obstacles for marginalized communities to speak back. 3.2 – Engagement with comment threads Observations There were many comments under posts that carefully grappled with all the arguments made in the original post or comments containing hate speech, responding to each point with their own logical reasoning. This suggests that some people are reading comment-threads carefully6. Interviewees also mentioned that they have the tendency to quickly read through comment threads, even among the negative comments, to find counter messages which reflect their opinions, though they do not write things themselves. Interpretations While people face obstacles to express their counter views under negative posts, the lack of comments by people who are affected by negative speech does not mean that readers are ignoring the comment threads altogether. Some interviewees lightly suggested that they are consulting comment threads in order to learn new things; this could be interpreted as a search for confirmation. It could also be a source of enjoyment; or it could also mean that participants want 5 It is very common for hate-speech speakers to use vulgar sexual slurs often embedded in sexist concepts of sexual dominance. They were not analyzed as our focus is on counter-speech and there was very little positive speech countering sexual slurs. 6 Annex 3 9