The influence of coordinated behavior on toxicity

TL;DR

This study investigates how coordinated behavior influences toxicity on social media, revealing that CB has limited overall impact but varies across different user groups and content types.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the relationship between coordinated behavior and toxicity, highlighting nuanced effects across political and behavioral cohorts.

Findings

CB users disseminate less harmful content overall

Toxicity levels are higher in original posts from CB users

Limited overall impact of CB on digital discourse toxicity

Abstract

In the intricate landscape of social media, genuine content dissemination may be altered by a number of threats. Coordinated Behavior (CB), defined as orchestrated efforts by entities to deceive or mislead users about their identity and intentions, emerges as a tactic to exploit or manipulate online discourse. This study delves into the relationship between CB and toxic conversation on X (formerly known as Twitter). Using a dataset of 11 million tweets from 1 million users preceding the 2019 UK general election, we show that users displaying CB typically disseminate less harmful content, irrespective of political affiliation. However, distinct toxicity patterns emerge among different coordinated cohorts. Compared to their non-CB counterparts, CB participants show marginally higher toxicity levels only when considering their original posts. We further show the effects of CB-driven toxic content on non-CB users, gauging its impact based on political leanings. Our findings suggest that CB only has a limited impact on the toxicity of digital discourse.