Language Mutations Sustain the Persistences of Conspiracy Theories on Social Media
A new study published on arXiv reveals that the way language changes over time significantly impacts the longevity of conspiracy theories on social media. Researchers analyzed three years of posts from X, finding that conspiracy claims with more semantic mutations, particularly in psycholinguistic properties and actor-action-target categories, tend to persist longer. The study identified simplification and assimilation as key mutation patterns and suggests that content moderation strategies should account for the adaptability of these claims. AI
IMPACT Understanding how language evolves in online discourse can inform AI-powered content moderation systems to better detect and mitigate the spread of misinformation.