Unraveling the Italian and English Telegram Conspiracy Spheres through Message Forwarding

TL;DR

This study analyzes how conspiracy theories spread on Telegram in Italian and English communities, revealing distinct narrative patterns and demonstrating a robust methodology for studying misinformation dissemination.

Contribution

It introduces a network-based, topic modeling approach to compare Italian and English Telegram conspiracy networks, highlighting differences and robustness across seed selections.

Findings

Italian conspiracy discourse involves diverse theories intertwined with legitimate news.

English discourse is more focused on specific narratives like QAnon.

Methodology is robust across different initial seed selections.

Abstract

Telegram has grown into a significant platform for news and information sharing, favored for its anonymity and minimal moderation. This openness, however, makes it vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories. In this study, we explore the dynamics of conspiratorial narrative dissemination within Telegram, focusing on Italian and English landscapes. In particular, we leverage the mechanism of message forwarding within Telegram and collect two extensive datasets through snowball strategy. We adopt a network-based approach and build the Italian and English Telegram networks to reveal their respective communities. By employing topic modeling, we uncover distinct narratives and dynamics of misinformation spread. Results highlight differences between Italian and English conspiracy landscapes, with Italian discourse involving assorted conspiracy theories and alternative news sources intertwined with legitimate news sources, whereas English discourse is characterized by a more focused approach on specific narratives such as QAnon and political conspiracies. Finally, we show that our methodology exhibits robustness across initial seed selections, suggesting broader applicability. This study contributes to understanding information and misinformation spread on Italian and English Telegram ecosystems through the mechanism of message forwarding