• Work

• Spillovers

• Reconfiguring-roles-and-relationships

In our paper, we delve into the dynamics of toxic interactions in online political discussions, specifically within a subreddit focused on a subculture of internet memes on Reddit. By analyzing a self-created dataset of over 2 million comments, we investigate how factors such as social identity and online anonymity contribute to the prevalence of incivility in comment and response chains online. Our findings reveal that cross-group interactions are more likely to be toxic compared to within-group interactions, particularly when users engage in toxic behavior to defend their in-group or prove their identity. Our study confirms hypotheses related to the likelihood of incivility stemming from out-group members and the amplification of toxicity in response to prior uncivil comments. Interestingly, our research also finds that the proximity to elections does not significantly increase the overall level of toxicity, despite a higher volume of comments during these periods. This work underscores the importance of understanding the mechanisms behind online toxicity to foster healthier online political discourse, as well as contributes to literature of online subcultures and social identity on the internet.

• Collected during project
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• Text Analysis

Yes

• Structured

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