Unraveling the Italian and English Telegram Conspiracy Spheres Through Message Forwarding

Lorenzo Alvisi, Serena Tardelli, Maurizio Tesconi

Abstract: Telegram has grown into a significant platform for news and information sharing, favored for its anonymity and minimal moderation. This openness, however, makes it vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories. In this study, we explore the dynamics of conspiratorial narrative dissemination within Telegram, focusing on Italian and English landscapes. In particular, we leverage the mechanism of message forwarding within Telegram and collect two extensive datasets through snowball strategy. We adopt a network-based approach and build the Italian and English Telegram networks to reveal their respective communities. By employing topic modeling, we uncover distinct narratives and dynamics of misinformation spread. Results highlight differences between Italian and English conspiracy landscapes, with Italian discourse involving assorted conspiracy theories and alternative news sources intertwined with legitimate news sources, whereas English discourse is characterized by a more focused approach on specific narratives. Finally, we show that our methodology exhibits robustness across initial seed selections, suggesting broader applicability. This study contributes to understanding information and misinformation spread on Italian and English Telegram ecosystems through the mechanism of message forwarding.