Online conspiracy communities are more resilient to deplatforming

Area of Science:

• Social Media Analysis
• Online Community Dynamics
• Content Moderation Studies

Background:

• Online social media platforms facilitate community formation around shared narratives.
• Some communities can become hubs for harmful content, including conspiracy theories and violent messages.
• Content moderation policies, such as deplatforming, are employed to mitigate these risks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the behavioral shift of users from banned Reddit communities (GreatAwakening, FatPeopleHate) after migration to Voat.
• To compare the migration patterns and activity levels of users from conspiracy versus non-conspiracy communities.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of deplatforming as a content moderation strategy.

Main Methods:

• Comparative analysis of user behavior on Reddit and Voat before and after community bans.
• Estimation of user migration rates between platforms.
• Quantification of user activity and toxicity levels on both platforms using matched users.
• Social network analysis to understand community recreation post-migration.

Main Results:

• Users from conspiracy communities (GreatAwakening) were more likely to migrate to Voat than users from body-shaming communities (FatPeopleHate).
• While overall activity decreased on Voat, GreatAwakening users who fully migrated maintained similar activity levels.
• Toxicity significantly increased on Voat for both migrated communities.
• Migrating conspiracy users actively recreated their social networks on Voat.

Conclusions:

• Deplatforming conspiracy communities may be less effective than anticipated due to user resilience and migration.
• The migration of users to unmoderated platforms can lead to increased toxicity and network persistence.
• Content moderation strategies, particularly deplatforming, require careful design to address the resilience of such online communities.