Linguistic Markers of Population Replacement Conspiracy Theories in YouTube Immigration Discourse

Abstract

This paper presents a linguistic analysis of YouTube comments related to immigration discourse, analyzing the contrasts between standard anti-immigration comments and those linked to Population Replacement Conspiracy Theories (PRCT). Using a dataset of 71,137 YouTube comments classified into three stance categories (PRO, NEUTRAL, CONTRA) and PRCT annotation, we analyze the linguistic features of each group through LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). Our findings reveal significant differences in the language patterns of PRCT comments, both in comparison to standard anti-immigration discourse (CONTRA) and to all other groups. These differences appear particularly in religious references, power dynamics, conflict framing, and emotional tone. The high linguistic overlap (89.7%) between conspiracy and non-conspiracy anti-immigration discourse reveals the subtle nature of these differences. These distinctive linguistic patterns provide valuable insights both for the understanding and the automatic detection of conspiracy theories in online discourse, contributing to the growing body of research on computational approaches to identifying harmful content online.