One of our studies won the Best Paper Award at the Fourteenth International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2024)! The study entitled “Examining the Impact of Toxicity on Community Structure in Social Networks” focused on how toxic content affects social media communities, specifically in the context of COVID-19 scams, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, and was authored by Niloofar Yousefi, Prof. Nitin Agarwal, Dr. Karen Watts DiCicco, and Md. Samin Morshed. By analyzing various COVID-19 discourse communities, the researchers measured the impact of toxicity on community fragmentation using metrics like modularity, clustering coefficients, and Granger causality tests.

The study’s findings reveal that toxicity has a notable fragmenting effect, especially within pro-vaccine communities, causing these groups to split into smaller, less toxic clusters over time. Interestingly, anti-vaccine communities exhibited more resilience to toxic content, showing less fragmentation. This dynamic suggests that toxicity impacts community stability differently based on shared beliefs and motivations within groups.

Prof. Agarwal said, “This research underscores the value of understanding these toxicity-driven patterns to enhance online discourse and improve community management. By recognizing how toxicity reshapes group structures, platforms can develop strategies to foster healthier discussions and mitigate polarization, especially in divisive topics like public health.”