论文标题
表征参与QANON阴谋论的用户的Reddit参与
Characterizing Reddit Participation of Users Who Engage in the QAnon Conspiracy Theories
论文作者
论文摘要
广泛的阴谋论可能会对我们的社会产生重大影响。本文重点介绍了Qanon阴谋论,这是一种相应的阴谋论,从社交媒体开始成功并成功传播。我们的工作是参与以QANON为中心的Qucocented子Reddits的Reddit用户如何从事平台上的活动,尤其是在自己的社区之外。我们在2018年对与Qanon相关活动的大规模REDDIT节制行动作为来源,我们确定了13,000名活跃于QANON社区的用户。我们收集了这些用户在2016年10月至2021年1月的所有REDDIT中发布的210万次提交和1080万条评论。这些用户中的大多数仅在Qanon阴谋理论出现后才活跃,并且在Reddit 2018年Qanon Ban之后的活动减少。对915个子列表的样本进行了定性分析,其中“ Qanon-tishusivic”用户特别活跃地表明,他们参与了各种各样的子雷数,通常与Qanon无关的话题。但是,大多数用户的意见集中在对阴谋论具有同情态度的亚列表中,其特征是讨论是亲特朗普或强调无汇处行为(通常是反建立和反干预主义者)的特征。进一步研究了其中1,571种这些意见的样本表明,大多数由低质量来源的联系组成,从而对更广泛的Reddit社区造成了潜在的伤害。这些结果表明,早期Qanon用户对Reddit的活动的可能性是专门的,并致力于阴谋,从而对平台审核设计和未来的研究产生了影响。
Widespread conspiracy theories may significantly impact our society. This paper focuses on the QAnon conspiracy theory, a consequential conspiracy theory that started on and disseminated successfully through social media. Our work characterizes how Reddit users who have participated in QAnon-focused subreddits engage in activities on the platform, especially outside their own communities. Using a large-scale Reddit moderation action against QAnon-related activities in 2018 as the source, we identified 13,000 users active in the early QAnon communities. We collected the 2.1 million submissions and 10.8 million comments posted by these users across all of Reddit from October 2016 to January 2021. The majority of these users were only active after the emergence of the QAnon Conspiracy theory and decreased in activity after Reddit's 2018 QAnon ban. A qualitative analysis of a sample of 915 subreddits where the "QAnon-enthusiastic" users were especially active shows that they participated in a diverse range of subreddits, often of unrelated topics to QAnon. However, most of the users' submissions were concentrated in subreddits that have sympathetic attitudes towards the conspiracy theory, characterized by discussions that were pro-Trump, or emphasized unconstricted behavior (often anti-establishment and anti-interventionist). Further study of a sample of 1,571 of these submissions indicates that most consist of links from low-quality sources, bringing potential harm to the broader Reddit community. These results point to the likelihood that the activities of early QAnon users on Reddit were dedicated and committed to the conspiracy, providing implications on both platform moderation design and future research.