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Research

What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities? Role of Social Factors in Conspiracy Engagement

Widespread conspiracy theories, like those motivating anti-vaccination attitudes or climate change denial, propel collective action and bear society-wide consequences. Yet, empirical research has largely studied conspiracy theory adoption as an individual pursuit, rather than as a socially mediated process. What makes users join communities endorsing and spreading conspiracy theories? We leverage longitudinal data from 56 conspiracy communities on Reddit to compare individual and social factors determining which users join the communities. Using a quasi-experimental approach, we first identify 30K future conspiracists-(FC) and 30K matched non-conspiracists-(NC). We then provide empirical evidence of importance of social factors across six dimensions relative to the individual factors by analyzing 6 million Reddit comments and posts. Specifically in social factors, we find that dyadic interactions with members of the conspiracy communities and marginalization outside of the conspiracy communities, are the most important social precursors to conspiracy joining-even outperforming individual factor baselines. Our results offer quantitative backing to understand social processes and echo chamber effects in conspiratorial engagement, with important implications for democratic institutions and online communities.

Video presented at CSCW '20: ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Session: Online Community Reflections.

Tanu Mitra

Shruti Vikas Phadke

Mattia Samory

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Projects in Data Science

  • Automated Literature Review
  • FlashSciTalks: Carole Palmer
  • What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities? Role of Social Factors in Conspiracy Engagement
  • Public Libraries and Open Government Data: Partnerships for Progress
  • What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities?: Role of Social Factors in Conspiracy Engagement
  • Constructing and evaluating automated literature review systems
  • Cross-disciplinary data practices in earth system science: Aligning services with reuse and reproducibility priorities
  • Election Integrity Partnership

News

A photo of Cynthia Leitich Smith and images of two of her books, "Jingle Dancer" and "Sisters of the Neversea."

Cynthia Leitich Smith to share insights on Indigenous stories

Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Children's and young adult book author Cynthia Leitich Smith writes stories that center Indigenous youth as heroes. Her storytelling draws inspiration from moments and experiences she’s had in her own life.“I didn't really think of it...
Read more
A patent form.

A simple intervention significantly improved patent outcomes for women inventors

Wednesday, October 1, 2025
While innovation is core to American identity, women inventors were named on only 13% of 2019 U.S. patents. In part, that’s because women’s patents are less likely to make it through the examination process. Research by the...
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Oct 14
 
12:00-1:30PM

CALMA Round Table : Mapping the Black Information Future

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Oct 14
 
3:00-4:00PM

Museology Prospective Student Application Workshop

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Oct 14
 
5:30-6:30PM

Speak Their Language: Translating your MLIS Skills for Corporate Resumes & Beyond

Husky Union Building 214
Oct 16
 
8:30-9:30AM

Pick Your Path Through MSIM

Zoom / Online
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