Grievance Politics vs. Policy Debates: A Cross-Platform Analysis of Conservative Discourse on Truth Social and Reddit

TL;DR

This study compares conservative discourse on Truth Social and Reddit, revealing platform-specific differences in content focus, toxicity levels, and user engagement patterns during the initial eight months.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale, cross-platform analysis of conservative communities, highlighting distinct discourse characteristics and dynamics on Truth Social versus Reddit.

Findings

Truth Social emphasizes grievance and narratives.

Reddit exhibits higher toxicity, especially on cultural topics.

Truth Social has higher baseline political engagement.

Abstract

We present the first large-scale comparative analysis of Truth Social and the most popular conservative Reddit communities, r/Conservative, r/conservatives, and r/Republican. Using topic modeling with FASTopic and LLM-assisted refinement, we analyze topic prevalence, toxicity, and temporal dynamics across these communities during the first eight months of Truth Social. We find clear contrasts: Truth Social centers on grievance and narrative-driven content, while Reddit focuses more on policy debates. Toxicity is higher on Reddit and peaks in cultural and leader-focused topics. Despite similar event-driven participation shocks across platforms, Truth Social shows higher baseline proportions of users engaging with political topics. Our findings contribute to understanding how alternative right-leaning platforms reshape online discourse.