Conspiracies Online: User Discussions in a Conspiracy Community Following Dramatic Events
Conspiracies Online: User Discussions in a Conspiracy Community Following Dramatic Events
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DOI：
10.1609/icwsm.v12i1.15039
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发表时间：
2018-06
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Mattia Samory;Tanushree Mitra
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Mattia Samory;Tanushree Mitra
在线社区在传播阴谋论方面发挥着至关重要的作用。新的理论往往出现在灾难性事件之后。尽管有证据表明它们具有广泛的吸引力，但令人惊讶的是，关于谁参与了这些特定事件的阴谋论讨论，或者这些讨论如何随着时间的推移而演变，我们知之甚少。我们研究了r/conspiracy，这是一个活跃的Reddit社区，拥有超过20万用户，致力于讨论阴谋论。通过关注四个悲剧事件和10年的讨论，我们发现了三个不同的用户群体：加入者，他们从未参与过Reddit，但只是在事件发生后才加入r/conspiracy;转换者，他们是活跃的Reddit用户，但只是在事件发生后才加入r/conspiracy;退伍军人，他们是长期的r/conspiracy成员。虽然与退伍军人相比，加入者和皈依者在社区中的寿命较短，但加入者在较短的任期内更加活跃，随着时间的推移越来越多地参与其中。最后，为了研究这些事件如何影响用户的阴谋论讨论，我们采用了因果推理方法来分析事件发生前后的用户评论。我们发现，事件发生后的讨论表现出情绪冲击的迹象，增加语言的复杂性，并同时表示肯定和怀疑。我们的工作提供了关于在线社区如何检测新的阴谋论的见解，这些阴谋论是在戏剧性事件之后出现的，并在此过程中在它们传播之前阻止它们。
Online communities play a crucial role in disseminating conspiracy theories. New theories often emerge in the aftermath of catastrophic events. Despite evidence of their widespread appeal, surprisingly little is known about who participates in these event-specific conspiratorial discussions or how do these discussions evolve over time. We study r/conspiracy, an active Reddit community of more than 200,000 users dedicated to conspiratorial discussions. By focusing on four tragic events and 10 years of discussions, we find three distinct user cohorts: joiners, who never participated in Reddit but joined r/conspiracy only after the event; converts who were active Reddit users but joined r/conspiracy only after the event; and veterans, who are longstanding r/conspiracy members. While joiners and converts have a shorter lifespan in the community in comparison to the veterans, joiners are more active during their shorter tenure, becoming increasingly engaged over time. Finally, to investigate how these events affect users’ conspiratorial discussions, we adopted a causal inference approach to analyze user comments around the time of the events. We find that discussions happening after the event exhibit signs of emotional shock, increased language complexity, and simultaneous expressions of certainty and doubtfulness. Our work provides insight on how online communities may detect new conspiracy theories that emerge ensuing dramatic events, and in the process stop them before they spread.