IsamasRed: A Public Dataset Tracking Reddit Discussions on Israel-Hamas Conflict

TL;DR

IsamasRed is a comprehensive Reddit dataset capturing nearly 400,000 discussions on the Israel-Hamas conflict, utilizing a novel keyword extraction method to analyze emotional, controversial, and ideological discourse.

Contribution

The paper introduces a large-scale, publicly available dataset on Reddit discussions about the Israel-Hamas conflict, with an innovative language model-based keyword extraction framework.

Findings

Discourse is highly emotional and controversial.

Topics and sentiment trends vary over time.

The dataset enables detailed analysis of online conflict discussions.

Abstract

The conflict between Israel and Palestinians significantly escalated after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, capturing global attention. To understand the public discourse on this conflict, we present a meticulously compiled dataset-IsamasRed-comprising nearly 400,000 conversations and over 8 million comments from Reddit, spanning from August 2023 to November 2023. We introduce an innovative keyword extraction framework leveraging a large language model to effectively identify pertinent keywords, ensuring a comprehensive data collection. Our initial analysis on the dataset, examining topics, controversy, emotional and moral language trends over time, highlights the emotionally charged and complex nature of the discourse. This dataset aims to enrich the understanding of online discussions, shedding light on the complex interplay between ideology, sentiment, and community engagement in digital spaces.