arXiv Computation and Language By Bich Ngoc Doan, Gianmarco De Francisci Morales, Giuseppe Russo

Beyond the Rabbit Hole: Mapping the Relational Harms of QAnon Radicalization

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The paper examines the relational harms of QAnon radicalization by analyzing 12,747 stories from the r/QAnonCasualties support group. Using a computational pipeline, the authors extract thematic traits, cluster them into six radicalization personas, and link these personas to specific emotional harms through LLM-assisted emotion detection and regression modeling. The study finds that certain personas predict distinct emotional outcomes, such as anger and disgust for ideologically driven radicalization, and fear and sadness for personal and cognitive collapse.

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