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Long online discussions are consistently the most toxic

An ambitious investigation has analysed discourse on eight social-media platforms, covering a vast array of topics and spanning several decades. It reveals that online conversations increase in toxicity as they get longer — and that this behaviour persists despite shifts in platforms’ business models, technological advances and societal norms.

This is a summary of: Avalle, M. et al. Persistent interaction patterns across social media platforms and over time. Nature 628, 582–589 (2024).

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01012-9

The figure is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

References

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