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


Wang Y., Abdellatif A., Deligianni A., Hok H., Çetinkaya Y. M., Elmas T.

International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, California, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 27 - 29 Mayıs 2026, ss.1-19, (Tam Metin Bildiri)

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
  • Doi Numarası: 10.48550/arxiv.2603.17
  • Basıldığı Şehir: California
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-19
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

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.