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Exploring Left-Wing Extremism on the Decentralized Web: An Analysis of Lemmygrad.ml (arxiv.org)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by LemmySlopSkimmer@hexbear.net to c/slop@hexbear.net

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This study investigates the presence of left-wing extremism on the Lemmygrad.ml instance of the decentralized social media platform Lemmy, from its launch in 2019 up to a month after the bans of the subreddits r/GenZedong and r/GenZhou.

We conduct a temporal analysis on Lemmygrad.ml’s user activity, with also measuring the degree of highly abusive or hateful content. Furthermore, we explore the content of their posts using a transformer-based topic modeling approach.

Our findings reveal a substantial increase in user activity and toxicity levels following the migration of these subreddits to Lemmygrad.ml.

We also identify posts that support authoritarian regimes, endorse the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and feature anti-Zionist and antisemitic content.

Overall, our findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of political extremism within decentralized social networks and emphasize the necessity of analyzing both ends of the political spectrum in research.

https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/40188039

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[–] Chana@hexbear.net 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Taking things=bad as an article of faith is basically the entire premise of social media analysis papers. They're very fed-coded and are virtually all published by grants to combat "misinformation", which is vaguely defined and mostly seems to mean, "whatever is against the ruling class liberal status quo PR teams want to be true today".

Here is a Nature paper in this vein about "pro-Russian misinformation" from just last year: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-60653-y . It is just as meaningless and thing=bad-y as this post's paper, but it is written better, has better graphics, uses more sophisticated jargon, and comes from a more prestigious group.

[–] newacctidk@hexbear.net 15 points 3 months ago

Yeah I don't read a ton of papers on social media, but from what I have, they really do trend towards just data and then a statement that each input means a certain thing full stop. Even when not about politics. It is like the bottom of the barrel for academia

[–] TankieTanuki@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Lol no kidding

All mentions of Oliver Stone's 2016 documentary constitute "pro-Russian misinformation" (regarding the 2022 invasion).

HOLD THE FORT. Look at this smoking gun.

People are SHARING THINGS on social media! Only Russia could think of a scheme this twisted.

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago

And this is the most prestigious journal on the planet.