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

Authors

  • Yining Wang GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences RWTH Aachen University
  • Alhasan Abdellatif Heriot-Watt University
  • Artemis Deligianni The University of Edinburgh
  • Hannah Hok Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard University
  • Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya The University of Edinburgh Middle East Technical University
  • Tuğrulcan Elmas The University of Edinburgh

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42758

Abstract

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.
ICWSM-2026 Proceedings Cover

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Published

2026-05-25

How to Cite

Wang, Y., Abdellatif, A., Deligianni, A., Hok, H., Çetinkaya, Y. M., & Elmas, T. (2026). Grievance Politics vs. Policy Debates: A Cross-Platform Analysis of Conservative Discourse on Truth Social and Reddit. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 20(1), 2418–2436. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42758

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 1: Proceedings of the Twentieth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

Section

Full Papers