Sub-Standards and Mal-Practices: Misinformation's Role in Insular, Polarized, and Toxic Interactions on Reddit

TL;DR

This study investigates how misinformation influences incivility and polarization on Reddit, revealing that unreliable news links correlate with increased toxicity and cross-political hostility among users.

Contribution

The paper provides empirical evidence linking misinformation to toxicity and polarization on Reddit, using regression and network models to analyze user interactions and content reliability.

Findings

Comments on unreliable news are more toxic and prevalent in right-leaning subreddits.

Toxicity increases with subreddit toxicity levels, especially for unreliable sources.

Users interacting with unreliable content are more likely to be toxic across political divides.

Abstract

In this work, we examine the influence of unreliable information on political incivility and toxicity on the social media platform Reddit. We show that comments on articles from unreliable news websites are posted more often in right-leaning subreddits and that within individual subreddits, comments, on average, are 32% more likely to be toxic compared to comments on reliable news articles. Using a regression model, we show that these results hold after accounting for partisanship and baseline toxicity rates within individual subreddits. Utilizing a zero-inflated negative binomial regression, we further show that as the toxicity of subreddits increases, users are more likely to comment on posts from known unreliable websites. Finally, modeling user interactions with an exponential random graph model, we show that when reacting to a Reddit submission that links to a website known for spreading unreliable information, users are more likely to be toxic to users of different political beliefs. Our results collectively illustrate that low-quality/unreliable information not only predicts increased toxicity but also polarizing interactions between users of different political orientations.