The Spread of Conspiracy Theories across Fringe Social Media, Mainstream Social Media, and Alternative News Media

The final speaker in this session at the Indicators of Social Cohesion symposium is the fabulous Annett Heft, whose focus is on patterns and dynamics of conspiracy theories (as part of the Neovex project), and especially on how these spread from the fringes to more mainstream visibility, not least also via social media.

Every digital platform shapes the dissemination of conspiracy theories in different ways, depending on its specific communicative affordances, and of course these platforms are also interconnected and integrated into a multi-platform communicative environment. How do the linguistic styles of conspiracist communication differ across platforms, then, and how does their function differ between platforms? The interrelated contextual conditions are likely to result in divergent vernaculars for conspiracy theories on these platforms, but spill-overs and adaptations between platforms should also be expected to occur, and this might enable conspiracy theories to reach a broader and more mainstream audience.

The present project focussed on conspiracy theories related to the ‘New World Order’, the ‘Great Replacement’, and ‘White Genocide’, and examined their presence on platforms ranging from 4chan through Twitter to alternative news sites including Breitbart, Daily Caller, Gateway Pundit, and The Blaze. Data were gathered using an (English-language) keyword-driven approach, gathering one week of data for each year from 2011 to 2021 and using an LLM-based classifier to analyse the content. Content was explored for its complexity, emotionality, certainty, and toxicity. There is evidence of a substantial growth in conspiracist content across these platform categories, with significant growth especially from 2015 or 2016 onwards.

Communication styles across the three platform categories were very different. 4chan posts were a great deal more explicit in their toxicity, while Twitter and especially alternative media posts couched their discussions in more indirect terms (even though they were still racist, anti-Semitic, and otherwise extremist in their discussions). There was also a gradual convergence in language between 4chan and Twitter over time. 4chan content was most certain and emotional about its statements, while alternative media were also highly emotional in their language, and used more complex expressions. Toxicity also rises over time.

Communicative functions of the three platform types were broadly similar – all of them were predominantly engaged in conspiracy theory narration, wist slightly more counter-narration on Twitter and slightly more neutral coverage on alternative media. Communication styles on these platforms are themselves unstable, however: this points to the event-driven character of conspiracy narration, and the influence of major influencers (including figures like Donald Trump) on the language being used. It is also evident that platform moderation – where it exists at all – has not captured many problematic terms that such conspiracy theorists use in their communication, and that this aids in the mainstreaming of their views through social media analysis.