The dark side of public visibility: How academic authors perceive and cope with anti-press hostility

Survey data mixed combined with qualitative interviews on 732 academic authors affiliated with The Conversation Canada found that toxic online public comments lead to authors self-censoring and reducing their efforts to inform the public of research findings.  Over 25% of the 732 respondents experienced toxic comments in either comment sections, on social media, and in their email accounts. Toxic comments were most commonly experienced to be ideological (70%), skeptical of expertise (47%), sexist (22%) or racist (16%).