Grievance Politics vs. Policy Debates: A Cross-Platform Analysis of Conservative Discourse on Truth Social and Reddit
This study helps understand how alternative right-leaning platforms reshape online discourse, though it is incremental as it applies existing methods to new data.
The researchers conducted the first large-scale comparative analysis of conservative discourse on Truth Social and Reddit, finding that Truth Social focuses more on grievance and narrative-driven content while Reddit emphasizes policy debates, with higher toxicity on Reddit and higher baseline political engagement on Truth Social.
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.