The effect of toxicity on COVID-19 news network formation in political subcommunities on Reddit: An affiliation network approach

Political polarization remains perhaps the "greatest barrier" to effective COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures in the United States. Social media has been implicated in fueling this polarization. In this paper, we uncover the network of COVID-19 related news sources shared to 30 politically biased and 2 neutral subcommunities on Reddit. We find, using exponential random graph modeling, that news sources associated with highly toxic - "rude, disrespectful" - content are more likely to be shared across political subreddits. We also find homophily according to toxicity levels in the network of online news sources. Our findings suggest that news sources associated with high toxicity are rewarded with prominent positions in the resultant network. The toxicity in COVID-19 discussions may fuel political polarization by denigrating ideological opponents and politicizing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, all to the detriment of mitigation measures. Public health practitioners should monitor toxicity in public online discussions to familiarize themselves with emerging political arguments that threaten adherence to public health crises management. We also recommend, based on our findings, that social media platforms algorithmically promote neutral and scientific news sources to reduce toxic discussion in subcommunities and encourage compliance with public health recommendations in the fight against COVID-19.