Corrado Monti, Matteo Cinelli, Carlo Valensise, Walter Quattrociocchi, Michele Starnini.
PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2023.
Moderation policies aim to reduce harm online, yet banning conspiratorial communities can trigger migration and reformation elsewhere. Comparing users of banned Reddit groups with their counterparts on Voat, this study shows that conspiracy networks reconstruct their social ties and activity levels after deplatforming, sustaining both engagement and toxicity. The results underscore the adaptive resilience of conspiratorial ecosystems, calling for moderation strategies that account for cross-platform behavior.