Sustained Harm Over Time and Space Limits the External Function of Online Counterpublics for American Muslims

Social media platforms are celebrated for their capacity to empower those with marginalized and disenfranchised identities and support them to create counterpublics. We focus on one such group, Muslim Americans, and ask how visible Muslim Americans, such as journalists, activists, and aspiring politicians, use social media to craft counter-narratives, reclaim control of their stories, and mitigate the harm directed at them. Through a series of 19 interviews, we found that visible Muslim Americans’ ability to craft and sustain counter narratives is largely hampered by sustained online harm. We found that these public figures were harmed repeatedly over long periods of time and through the weaponization of platform affordances such as replying, tagging, and hashtag takeovers, as well as their gender and identity. Our findings shed light on the serious limitations of social media to provide a safe platform for counterpublics to engage externally with wider publics. Finally, we discuss the limitations of content moderation as the dominant framework for addressing harm online and suggest alternative paths forward based on restorative and transformative justice.