Polarization and discursive strategies in the surrogacy debate on Twitter

Polarización y estrategias discursivas en el debate sobre la gestación subrogada en Twitter

Polarização e estratégias discursivas no debate sobre gestação por substituição no Twitter

Aina Fernàndez Aragonès^1*

¹ TecnoCampus - UPF in Mataró, Spain
^* Professor at TecnoCampus - UPF in Mataró, Spain. Email: afernandez@tecnocampus.cat

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to study the nature of the public debate on Twitter (now called X) about surrogate motherhood, in order to examine the discursive strategies of the different participants in the conversation and determine if and how polarization is organized on social media. To this end, a social network analysis (SNA) has been conducted on Twitter communities using a sample of 41,118 tweets, and the content of a sample of 1,495 tweets has been analyzed from a qualitative perspective. The results indicate an attempt by the far right to polarize the debate through the use of bots, the importance of the media in shaping democratic debate online, and the use of discursive strategies of disinformation, such as the false analogies and appeals to emotion that characterize post-truth politics.

Keywords
Surrogacy; Polarization; Social media; Disinformation; Bots; Feminism.

Resumen

El objetivo principal de este artículo es estudiar la formación del debate público en Twitter (actualmente llamado X) sobre la gestación subrogada, para examinar las estrategias discursivas de los diferentes agentes de la conversación y determinar si existe y cómo se organiza la polarización en las redes. Para ello, se han analizado las comunidades en Twitter (X) en una muestra de 41.118 tuits mediante el Análisis de Redes Sociales (SNA) y se ha analizado el contenido desde una perspectiva de análisis cualitativo en una muestra de 1495 tuits. Los resultados indican un intento de polarización del debate por parte de la extrema derecha mediante el uso de bots, la importancia de los medios de comunicación para la vertebración de un debate virtual democrático y el uso de estrategias discursivas de desinformación, como las falsas analogías o las apelaciones a lo emocional propios de la posverdad.

Palabras clave
Gestación Subrogada; Polarización; Redes sociales; Desinformación; Bots; Feminismo.

Resumo

O principal objetivo deste artigo é estudar a formação do debate público no Twitter (atualmente chamado X) sobre a gestação de substituição, a fim de examinar as estratégias discursivas dos diferentes participantes na conversa e determinar se existe e como a polarização se organiza nas redes sociais. Para isso, as comunidades no Twitter foram analisadas em uma amostra de 41.118 tuítes por meio da Análise de Redes Sociais (SNA) e o conteúdo foi analisado sob uma perspectiva qualitativa em uma amostra de 1.495 tuítes. Os resultados indicam uma tentativa de polarização do debate por parte da extrema-direita através do uso de bots, a importância dos meios de comunicação na formação de um debate virtual democrático e o uso de estratégias discursivas de desinformação, como falsas analogias ou apelos emocionais, características da pós-verdade.

Palavras-chave
Gestação por substituição; Polarização; Redes sociais; Desinformação; Bots; Feminismo.

1. Introduction

In the early spring of 2023, one of Spain’s most popular lifestyle magazines, ¡Hola!, ran a cover story about the actress and celebrity Ana Obregón becoming a new mother at the age of 68 by means of a surrogate pregnancy. This story, which quickly went viral on social media and was also picked up by traditional news outlets, incited further controversy when a few days later it was revealed that the newborn’s biological father was Obregón’s son Aless, who had died of cancer three years earlier.

Beyond the outrage, the ethical and legal implications of this case have inspired intense public debate in the media, both on television and especially in the Twitterverse, on a complex question that currently has a very clearly defined legal status in Spain: surrogacy is against the law (Marrades Puig, 2017). Despite this fact, many Spanish families (including many celebrities) have resorted to it through the option of “transnational surrogacy” (Halmø Kroløkke & Pant, 2012).

Twitter (now known as X) is a highly politicized social media platform, “which gives it great value as a barometer of public opinion” (Martínez-Rolán & Piñeiro Otero, 2016, p. 148). However, the current context of polarization, disinformation and cyberbullying raises questions about the usefulness of online spaces as forums for democratic debate (Lewandowsky et al., 2017; Piñeiro-Otero & Martínez-Rolán, 2021). Discursive strategies based on fallacies and populist propaganda (Marín-Albaladejo, 2023; Mittermeier, 2017) pose a challenge for democratic discussion on social media.

The main objective of this article is to study the nature of public debate on social media platforms (specifically, on Twitter) in relation to a controversial issue (in this case, surrogacy), in order to examine the discursive strategies employed by the different participants in the conversation and to determine how polarization is organized on such platforms. It thus aims to answer the following two research questions:

RQ1.- What are the communities established on Twitter around the public debate on surrogacy and how do they interact?

RQ2.- What are the main arguments on each side of the debate and what discursive strategies are used to support them?

1.1. Networks, public space and democracy

Since its origins, and especially since the beginning of this century, the internet has been characterized as an ideal space for democracy (Castells, 2009). Its network structure facilitates horizontal communication among its users (Sunstein, 2017), disrupting the established principles of influence in the modern age, allowing people outside the political elite or mainstream media to take a more active part in the dynamics of information dissemination and currents of opinion (Casero-Ripollés, 2018; Enli, 2017).

Because of their decentralized and interactive nature and the possibility of anonymity they offer, social media platforms are spaces where people can share power and even question the supremacy of the State (Fuchs, 2013). Twitter in particular is viewed as a platform of importance for public debate (Castromil et al., 2020), whose users can participate in a conversation on an equal playing field that some authors have referred to as “e-democracy” (Martínez-Rolán & Piñeiro Otero, 2016).

This context has forced the political elite and mainstream media to reposition themselves through the removal of intermediaries (Diez-Gracia et al., 2023). Twitter has become a platform where journalists can gain visibility and credibility by developing their own personal brand outside the media outlet they work for (Molyneux & Mourão, 2019). This reality, combined with the consolidation of digital capitalism and the increasingly precarious nature of a profession now dominated by freelancers and subcontractors, has created a new media ecosystem that is fragmented and complex.

However, the initial euphoria that online environments inspired in scholars and social movements has been marred by a new context characterized by the emergence of clearly anti-democratic discourses and ideas with xenophobic, misogynistic or homophobic overtones (Arce-García & Menéndez-Menéndez, 2022). Social media paradoxically serve both as exceptional platforms for the exchange of information and as the main sources of disinformation, propaganda and “fake news” (Pérez-Dasilva et al., 2020; Spohr, 2017). There are three main factors that raise questions about the capacity of social media to act as forums for public participation: the new principles of influence on the web; ideological polarization and the echo chambers that promote it; and bots and other mechanisms for distorting public opinion.

Social influence is defined as intentional or unintentional communication that elicits changes in the attitudes, beliefs or motivations of other people (Casero-Ripollés, 2020). What distinguishes influence on social media is the fact that it is not necessarily the political elite or mainstream media corporations that hold this influence, as a high level of popularity does not necessarily result in a high level of influence, as previous studies have shown (Cha et al., 2010; Shmargad, 2022). Moreover, while the principles that determine social media algorithms are opaque and volatile (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2021; Pariser, 2011), the anonymity that characterizes social media tends to incentivize extreme discourses (Arce-García & Menéndez-Menéndez, 2022; Villar Aguilés & Pecourt Gracia, 2021).

Social media platforms function in a way that means users actively select the content and contacts they interact with. Due to the cognitive mechanism of confirmation bias, users tend to seek reinforcement of their own opinions by assigning more credibility to information that supports their pre-existing opinions, while dismissing information that does not (Sunstein, 2017). This results in the creation of communities of users with shared opinions, known as echo chambers (Dubois & Blank, 2018). Echo chambers are a defining feature of polarization, which involves “the containment of like-minded opinion groups clustered around transversal issues and notions of identity, and the destruction of connections with the rival ideology” (Rodríguez & Arroyo, 2022, p. 237).

This segregation of the online space into small, highly polarized groups is driven mainly by users with very intense and often extreme discourses. But it is further exacerbated by the deliberate distortion of public opinion fomented on social media through techniques of techno-censorship, such as the use of “trolls” (Crosas Remón & Medina-Bravo, 2018; Villar Aguilés & Pecourt Gracia, 2021), i.e., accounts designed to create controversy and change the public agenda), bots (automated fake accounts (Puyosa, 2017), and astroturfing, referring to the creation of fake popular support for certain opinions or information (Arce Garcia et al., 2024; Bandy & Diakopoulos, 2020; Elmas et al., 2021). Automated fake profiles represent between 9% and 15% of all profiles operating on Twitter (Varol et al., 2017).

In addition to the use of technology, promoters of populist discourses have found an ideal tool in the brevity of microblogging. Emotional appeals, dichotomous simplifications (“us vs. them”), demonization of the adversary and victimization are some of the polarizing discursive mechanisms identified on social media (Marín-Albaladejo, 2023).

1.2. The surrogacy debate

Surrogacy is a practice whereby a woman carries a fetus to term either as an altruistic act or in exchange for financial compensation for a person who is unable to do so for medical or social reasons (van den Akker et al., 2016). Even the terminology associated with surrogacy is controversial. The widely used Spanish expression vientre de alquiler (literally, “rental womb”) has a negative connotation because of the emphasis it places on the transactional nature of the practice (Sanmartín Sáez, 2023). Vientre de alquiler and útero de alquiler (“rental uterus”) (Rubio, 2014) are two of the most commonly used terms by feminist critics, both highlighting the reduction of the woman to the status of a reproductive organ (Marrades Puig, 2017).

The controversy associated with surrogacy is evident in the diversity of legal responses to the practice in different countries. In Spain, for example, it is not legally recognized (Marrades Puig, 2017), while in countries such as the United Kingdom and Portugal, commercial surrogacy is illegal but altruistic surrogacy is permitted (van den Akker et al., 2016). In other jurisdictions, such as Russia, Ukraine, Israel, India and certain states of the United States, commercial surrogacy is legal (Rudrappa & Collins, 2015; Smietana, 2017).

International surveys of public opinion suggest that surrogacy is the least socially accepted method of forming a family, and that the factors that most influence this negative perception are the aspect of the financial transaction and the survey respondent’s religious values (Teman, 2019). However, the mass media often convey a rose-colored view of surrogacy through the publication of news stories about celebrities who resort to it in order to avoid having to get pregnant and give birth themselves (Cutuli, 2021) and the normalization of the practice in TV fiction programs (Markens, 2012). In Spain, De Cesare (2017) identifies a tendency in the media to privilege an interpretative framing of surrogacy based on positive values.

The reality is that there is no consensus on this issue on either side of the ideological spectrum: on the right, liberals in favor of legalizing the practice coexist with more conservative (and religious) sectors that view it as an attack on the traditional family (Ventura et al., 2019); while on the left, although the majority take a position against surrogacy, there are some who call for it to be regulated, approaching the issue from the perspective of a reconsideration of the concept of family. This is a view shared by some within the LGBTQ+ movement, particularly among gay and trans groups. Feminists may perhaps constitute the group that takes the strongest stance against surrogacy, especially radical feminists, who consider it to be a form of exploitation of women’s bodies. This in turn raises an intersectional question related to the role that class plays in the practice, given that the main victims of surrogacy are poor women. However, some liberal feminists who argue for the right of women to choose how they use their own bodies identify a simultaneously reactionary and radical potential in surrogacy to redefine family and motherhood (Halmø Kroløkke & Pant, 2012; Markens, 2012).

The main arguments put forward by critics of surrogacy include its description as a form of violence against women, exploitation and the commodification of women’s bodies (Olza, 2018; Sanmartín Sáez, 2023). As Marrades Puig argues, “there is a clear instrumentalisation of women to satisfy desires at the service of a patriarchal structure evident both in the pressure to become a mother at any cost and in the need to have offspring who share your genetic characteristics” (2017, p. 229).

This intersectional discursive framing is adopted by many in the feminist movement and on the left more generally, particularly in relation to transnational surrogacy, whereby rich people in the First World “purchase children” gestated by poor women in the Third World (Halmø Kroløkke & Pant, 2012; Markens, 2012; Smietana, 2017).

Arguments in favor of surrogacy take two contradictory positions. On one side are those who stress the altruism of surrogate mothers while playing down the commercial transaction that the process involves, viewing the financial component as a secondary motivation despite the fact that altruistic surrogacy is relatively uncommon throughout the world (Olza, 2018). Reproduction is thus identified with the private sphere, where it is constructed as an individual choice that legitimizes the fact that surrogate mothers’ bodies are subject to the desires and needs of others (Halmø Kroløkke & Pant, 2012). On the other side, advocates of surrogacy describe the commercial transaction as an employment opportunity in contexts of economic disadvantage, taking a liberal view that transactions of this nature can improve the living conditions of poor women and their families (Rudrappa & Collins, 2015).

2. Material and methods

This research uses a mixed methodology. In the first stage, the communities and conversation on Twitter are subjected to a social network analysis (SNA) (RQ1), while the second stage involves a qualitative study based on critical discourse analysis and framing theory (RQ2).

SNA has been used to analyze the relationships between Twitter users with the NodeXL software package, which can be used to download tweets from Twitter’s API and to identify correlations between groups of users based on natural language processing (NLP) (Das & Ahmed, 2022; Hansen et al., 2011).

The sample was collected using the keywords gestación subrogada (“gestational surrogacy”) OR vientre de alquiler (“rent a womb”), as these are the most common terms used in Spanish to designate the practice. The use of terms in Spanish limited the sample to the Spanish-speaking world (mainly Latin America and Spain). The sample covered the period from April 1 to April 13, 2023. This period was selected because it coincided with the news about the birth of the Spanish actress Ana Obregón’s surrogate granddaughter. The sample for the social network analysis is comprised of 48,114 edges (tweets and retweets) with 15,139 vertices (unique users). The analysis of the 48,114 edges using the Harel-Koren fast multi-scale algorithm to generate clusters (Ahmed et al., 2022) has identified 595 communities with a modularity of 0.4. Modularity measures network fragmentation, with a measurement closer to 1.0 indicating a more fragmented network. For the analysis of influence, the indicators used include betweenness centrality, which measures the centrality of the edge in the conversation (Ahmed et al., 2020; Ahmed & Lugovic, 2019) and eigenvector centrality, which measures the proximity of the edge to a more influential edge (Arce-García & Menéndez-Menéndez, 2022; Casero-Ripollés, 2020; McGregor & Mourão, 2016; Rojas & Osorio, 2022).

For the qualitative analysis, the theoretical perspective used is critical discourse analysis (CDA), which is considered particularly useful when the focus of the research is a social issue of importance to the community in which the discourse is disseminated, and when the researcher seeks to find evidence of social inequality (Pardo Abril, 2012; Van Dijk, 2016; Vasilachis, 2005).

This critical perspective is associated with framing theory, a type of interpretative textual analysis where the “frame” is the key idea underpinning the text. Its construction involves the selection of a series of topics, contexts and words (and the exclusion or limitation of others) that foster a particular interpretation of the text (Scheufele, 1999). Framing theory has been used widely in research on Twitter (Altoaimy, 2018; Jungherr, 2014).

The sample units are the tweets, replies and mentions (excluding retweets) that are retweeted more than 50 times; this criterion has been used in numerous previous studies (Babcock et al., 2019; Shmargad, 2022; Suau-Gomila et al., 2017). The sample analyzed is made up of 472 unique tweets and 1,023 replies and mentions (n=1495). The sample was coded using a range of qualitative variables: the framing used according to the position taken on the topic; the discursive categorization of fallacies and propaganda mechanisms (Pérez-Curiel & García-Gordillo, 2020) such as appeals to authority, appeals to emotion, ad hominem fallacies, appeals to force, appeals to ignorance, attributions, causal fallacies, emphasis, stereotypes, false analogies, talking about other sources, presenting opinions as facts, using selective information, using labels; and the analysis of cyberbullying strategies (Crosas Remón & Medina-Bravo, 2018) such as insults, sarcasm, imposition, desire to harm, sexual objectification, criminalization and defamation, general threats and sexual threats. The content was coded with the help of Atlas.ti software, which includes a function for working with code co-occurrences.

3. Analysis and results

3.1. Network analysis

The network is comprised of 15,137 vertices and 6,172 unique edges (see Table 1). It has a maximum geodesic distance of 17 and an average geodesic distance of 4,729 (the average of the shortest distance between edges). The graph density is 0.00019, which means it is a low-density, dispersed network. This can be explained by the fact that the graph has been generated by keywords rather than hashtags, for example, which make it possible to monitor the conversation and categorize the debate.

In this case, the network is identified as a “community cluster” network (Ahmed & Lugovic, 2019).

A community cluster is characterized by the fragmentation of the conversation into small groups, with each group having its own influencers, sources of information and audience (Smith et al., 2014). In this network, depicted in Figure 1, there are several predominant communities, while there are also many users who do not interact with other edges. Thus, the vast majority of the 595 clusters identified by NodeXL are made up of only two or three edges.

An analysis of the interaction between the main groups and their commonalities (see Table 2) reveals two major blocks: groups G1, G9 and G10, which have limited interaction with other groups and which could be placed at the far right of the ideological spectrum; and groups G2, G3, G4 and G7, which take a critical view of surrogacy from a feminist or leftist perspective. Groups G6 and G8 both support surrogacy but do not interact with each other, although they do interact with G2, the main group in which the debate on the topic is broader.

The predominant group in the clustering of the conversation is G1. However, the group with the most interactions with other groups is G2. A detailed analysis of G1 reveals that it has a high number of internal edges (8,050) and minimal interaction with other groups.

Figure 2 shows that the most important vertex on the whole network (an anonymous profile) has a significant number of users within the G1 group retweeting its tweets, without any other interaction with other edges. An analysis of these vertices reveals that they match the classic bot profile. It is telling that in the G1 group the vertices with a higher eigenvector centrality factor are profiles with an average of 100 followers. It is also a group that does not use hashtags or share content (seven is the highest number of shares received by any single link in this group, compared to 271 for the link shared the most by the G2 group).

The 10 users on the network with the biggest influence on the conversation (see Table 3) include ordinary citizens, media outlets, individual journalists and politicians.

The media contribute to the online conversation both directly and indirectly. Some of the conversation groups revolve significantly around hashtags related to media content. Two examples of this are the Twitter accounts for the current affairs program La Sexta Xplica (groups G2 and G3) and the cable news network Antena3 (G8). Traditional and digital media content (news stories and opinion pieces) constitute the dialectical material around which various conversations revolve, forming a particular cluster on the network.

The media also contribute to the ideological polarization evident on social media platforms. Significantly, far-right groups (G1, G9 and G10) share the content of highly radicalized digital media outlets, such as the Spanish digital newspapers The Objective, Mediterráneo Digital and OKDiario.

3.2. Discursive framing in the surrogacy debate

3.2.1 The discourse of the far right

Far-right discourse is present in groups G1 (bots), G9 and G10. The discourse of these groups reflects an ambiguous attitude towards the subject (“I’m not in favor of surrogacy, but...”); however, it is also characterized by constant attacks on the Spanish government (formed at the time by the progressive coalition of the Socialist and Podemos parties) and on “leftists” as a whole. These attacks are founded on three main premises:

- Defense of Ana Obregón, whom they claim is criticized for being a woman and a conservative (referencing other cases of supposedly leftist or gay media figures whom they argue have been treated differently by the media).

- The surrogacy debate is a smokescreen to divert attention from government corruption or mismanagement.

- Leftists are hypocritical because they condemn surrogacy yet are in favor of abortion: “They have a hard time taking a stance on buying children, but they’re not so hesitant to support killing them in the mother’s womb” (@user01).

This far-right discourse makes use of two main strategies: false analogies and ad hominem fallacies (i.e., criticizing the person rather than their arguments). The most common ad hominem fallacies found in the sample attack Irene Montero, who was Spain’s Minister for Equality at the time, or the lesbian actress Anabel Alonso, who is also the object of a false analogy as it was her own partner rather than a third-party surrogate who gave birth to her daughter. Most of the false analogies use arguments typical of traditional populism, attacking two of the most commonly targeted groups: immigrants and the gay community. The case of immigrants is the most paradigmatic given that it bears no relation whatsoever to the topic of debate: “Ana Obregón won’t be able to register her granddaughter in the Civil Registry because it would disturb the public order in Spain. She should take the child to Morocco and put her on a dinghy to Spain; then they’ll resolve all her legal problems and she’ll get every advantage” (@user02).

3.2.2 Arguments against surrogacy: “Don’t buy kids”

The majority of the content analyzed takes a position against surrogacy. This critical stance is most commonly argued from a feminist or leftist perspective (G2, G3, G4 and G7) and much less often from a conservative perspective (G8).

The main arguments used are the feminist arguments described above in the review of the literature: the reproductive exploitation and commodification of women (the “buy a baby” metaphor is the most frequently used expression in these tweets: “You give them money and they give you a baby. You tell me what that’s called” (@user03)).

Given that most of the tweets come from Spain, Spanish legislation is often put forward as an argument: “Surrogacy IS ALREADY regulated in Spain: it is illegal. That means that human beings cannot be purchased, and women cannot be reproductively exploited because the Supreme Court deems it to be violence against women. It isn’t so hard to understand” (@user04).

Within the LGBTQ+ community, which is often depicted in the media as a homogeneous group, there are also differing opinions on surrogacy. The arguments against the practice include the feminist criticism of the exploitation of women while emphatically distancing the community from the practice: “Let’s be clear. Surrogacy is not a demand of the LGBTQ+ community. 80% of people who turn to the surrogate market are straight. Stop using us to defend the reproductive exploitation of women” (@user05).

Anti-surrogacy discourse has the most informational support in the tweets (highest density of shared links), with data or sources provided to back up the information offered. However, it is also the discursive space where the most cyberbullying strategies are identified, especially insults and sarcasm. “Has your washing machine broken down? We’ll get you another one. That’s what this surrogacy agency thing sounds like” (@user06).

3.2.3 Arguments for surrogacy: the desire to form a family

Tweets supporting surrogacy do not represent the majority of the sample analyzed, although their presence is not insignificant either. The position in favor of surrogacy is articulated from two different perspectives, but with similar arguments: on the one hand, a more “progressive” perspective (in the G2 group), led by a section of the LGBTQ+ community that supports the practice; and on the other, a more conservative, neoliberal perspective, led by the Spanish political party Citizens (Cs) (G6 and G8).

The main arguments are related to personal freedom (to be a surrogate mother), the desire/right to form a family and the protection of the minors produced by surrogacy.

On the question of women’s “freedom” to decide what they do with their own bodies, an analogy with abortion is drawn by citing the feminist slogan nosotras decidimos (“we [women] decide”). Advocates of this position assert that women decide freely to be surrogate mothers: “If a woman offers herself for this it’s also her decision; I wouldn’t do it for all the money in the world” (@user07).

In general, the discourse is based more on an appeal to the emotions than on rational arguments, as most who argue in favor of the practice, with the exception of the Citizens party, do so from the perspective of personal experience or individual situations. The desire to form a family (which in some debates is conflated with a right) is thus one of the main arguments: “Of course not. We gay people are more like puppies, right? Well, my friend, I want to have a family. So don’t speak for me. Thank you” (@user08).

Responding to the aggressive attitude of some who argue against surrogacy are the claims of victimization by some who defend it: “As soon as you scratch a little, you can see the homophobia of people against surrogacy. In the end, what bothers them is that we can have children” (@user09). This is also evident in the use of hashtags such as Stop Subrofobia (literally, “Stop Surro-phobia”), implicitly associating opinions opposing surrogacy with a hate crime.

4. Conclusions and Discussion

In relation to the communities created around the surrogacy issue (RQ1), the main findings of the network analysis suggest that:

- The groups with the most diverse range of opinions and greatest interaction with other groups are the ones organized around hashtags and conversations related to content on conventional media, particularly television.

- The groups with the most radicalized and homogeneous opinions do not interact with vertices that express different opinions, and the behavior of the G1 group suggests the use of bots.

The mass media continues to play a key role in shaping public opinion and is still crucial to social cohesion in the context of democratic debate. In the absence of other elements to structure the conversation (such as the use of hashtags), traditional media sources allow users to avoid the selective exposure that typifies social media platforms (Stroud, 2010).

While it has been shown that the arguments for and against surrogacy do not necessarily align with the ideological left and right in the way that other issues such as abortion do, the battle between the two sides of the political spectrum over how to frame the issue is very clear in the debate on social media. In this case, the polarization is artificially reinforced by the use of bots on the far right to amplify its discourse on social media. This strategy is far from new (Enli, 2017; T. Fuchs & Schäfer, 2019), as previous studies have identified similar attempts by far-right groups to polarize public opinion through the use of bots, trolls and astroturfing techniques (Arce-García & Menéndez-Menéndez, 2022; Durántez-Stolle et al., 2023).

An analysis of the discursive strategies used by each opinion group (RQ2) has identified that the three main groups employ three different strategies. The far right has been found to be the group that makes the most use of disinformation and propaganda in its discourse, a finding in keeping with previous studies (Alizadeh et al., 2019).

Feminists and leftists adopt a discourse based on argumentation, providing information rather than mere opinion, although this group is also the one that most often takes an aggressive approach to the debate (insults and sarcasm). Although such tactics constitute cyberbullying, they are less aggressive than other strategies commonly used on social media platforms to criticize this group that have been identified in previous research (Crosas Remón & Medina-Bravo, 2018; Peña-Fernández et al., 2023; Piñeiro-Otero & Martínez-Rolán, 2021; Villar Aguilés & Pecourt Gracia, 2021).

Supporters of surrogacy use arguments that appeal more to the emotions than to reason, in an approach that is very much in keeping with the dynamic of post-modernity and the concomitant phenomenon of post-truth (Laybats & Tredinnick, 2016).

The online world is not a space that can be disconnected from the public sphere. This suggests that initiatives to transfer the spaces for public communication once offered by public broadcasters to the online environment, such as the Public Service Media proposal (Medina & Ojer, 2011), may serve to ensure genuine democratic debate free of the dangers of the extremist discourses instigated by the dissemination of disinformation and the promotion of polarization.

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