Abstract In the era of rising populist sentiment, deep social and political polarisations, and a growing crisis of online harms, numerous scholars share concern about the impact of such uncivil populist forces on the health of liberal democracy. This article argues that we should first normatively distinguish between incivility and intolerance. We contend that the core problem of uncivil society is intolerance, not incivility. We then empirically analyse incivility and intolerance during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum and its discussions on Twitter by conducting a content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of 3,000 tweets posted between April and June 2018. The results show that despite selecting a highly emotive and polarised issue, incivility and intolerance do not dominate the Twittersphere. Furthermore, gender and political position of users were found to be associated with use of incivility and intolerance, which increased as the referendum approached.

中文翻译：

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揭开不文明社会的面纱：Twitter 上 2018 年爱尔兰堕胎公投讨论中的不文明和不容忍

摘要 在民粹主义情绪高涨、社会和政治两极分化严重、网络危害危机日益严重的时代，许多学者都对这种不文明的民粹主义力量对自由民主健康的影响表示担忧。本文认为，我们应该首先规范地区分不文明和不容忍。我们认为，不文明社会的核心问题是不宽容，而不是不文明行为。然后，我们通过对 2018 年 4 月至 6 月期间发布的 3,000 条推文进行内容分析和定性文本分析，实证分析 2018 年爱尔兰堕胎公投期间的不文明和不容忍行为及其在 Twitter 上的讨论。结果表明，尽管选择了一个高度情绪化和两极分化的问题，不文明和不宽容并没有主导 Twitter 圈。此外，