Cross-platform analysis of user comments in YouTube videos linked on Reddit’s conspiracy theory forum

Abstract

This study examines the cross-platform influence of content sharing by analyzing language patterns in YouTube comments before and after videos are linked on Reddit’s r/conspiracy subreddit. Analyzing 859 videos from three channels and over 180,000 comments, we found that user language in YouTube comments significantly shifts toward r/conspiracy’s linguistic patterns following Reddit exposure, as measured by TF-IDF representations and Jensen-Shannon divergence. While sentiment and subjectivity remain unchanged, the lexical content shows meaningful convergence with the conspiracy forum’s discourse. These findings provide evidence of cross-platform influence on user language when content is shared between social media platforms, contributing to our understanding of information flow in online ecosystems.