Causal Effects of Trigger Words in Social Media Discussions: A Large-Scale Case Study about UK Politics on Reddit

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 100 million Reddit comments to understand how trigger words in UK political discussions influence engagement and increase polarisation, revealing their role in escalating emotional exchanges.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale empirical analysis of trigger words' effects on online political debate dynamics and polarisation on Reddit.

Findings

Trigger words correlate with higher engagement.

Mention of trigger words increases negative and hateful responses.

Trigger words contribute to online polarisation.

Abstract

Political debates on social media often escalate quickly, leading to increased engagement as well as more emotional and polarised exchanges. Trigger points (Mau, Lux, and Westheuser 2023) represent moments when individuals feel that their understanding of what is fair, normal, or appropriate in society is being questioned. Analysing Reddit discussions, we examine how trigger points shape online debates and assess their impact on engagement and affect. Our analysis is based on over 100 million comments from subreddits centred on a predefined set of terms identified as trigger words in UK politics. We find that mentions of these terms are associated with higher engagement and increased animosity, including more controversial, negative, angry, and hateful responses. These results position trigger words as a useful concept for modelling and analysing online polarisation.