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The disruptive offline mobilization of participants in online conspiracy theory (CT) discussions has highlighted the importance of understanding how online users may form radicalized conspiracy beliefs. While prior work researched the factors leading up to joining online CT discussions and provided theories of how conspiracy beliefs form, we have little understanding of how conspiracy radicalization evolves after users join CT discussion communities. In this paper, we provide the empirical modeling of various radicalization phases in online CT discussion participants.To unpack how conspiracy engagement is related to radicalization, we first characterize the users' journey through CT discussions via conspiracy engagement pathways. Specifically, by studying 36K Reddit users through their 169M contributions, we uncover four distinct pathways of conspiracy engagement: steady high, increasing, decreasing, and steady low.We further model three successive stages of radicalization guided by prior theoretical works.Specific sub-populations of users, namely those on steady high and increasing conspiracy engagement pathways, progress successively through various radicalization stages. In contrast, users on the decreasing engagement pathway show distinct behavior: they limit their CT discussions to specialized topics, participate in diverse discussion groups, and show reduced conformity with conspiracy subreddits. By examining users who disengage from online CT discussions, this paper provides promising insights about conspiracy recovery process. 

Online discussion platforms provide a forum to strengthen and propagate belief in misinformed conspiracy theories. Yet, they also offer avenues for conspiracy theorists to express their doubts and experiences of cognitive dissonance. Such expressions of dissonance may shed light on who abandons misguided beliefs and under what circumstances. This paper characterizes self-disclosures of dissonance about QAnon-a conspiracy theory initiated by a mysterious leader "Q" and popularized by their followers ?anons"-in conspiratorial subreddits. To understand what dissonance and disbelief mean within conspiracy communities, we first characterize their social imaginaries-a broad understanding of how people collectively imagine their social existence. Focusing on 2K posts from two image boards, 4chan and 8chan, and 1.2 M comments and posts from 12 subreddits dedicated to QAnon, we adopt a mixed-methods approach to uncover the symbolic language representing the movement,expectations,practices,heroes and foes of the QAnon community. We use these social imaginaries to create a computational framework for distinguishing belief and dissonance from general discussion about QAnon, surfacing in the 1.2M comments. We investigate the dissonant comments to characterize the dissonance expressed along QAnon social imaginaries. Further, analyzing user engagement with QAnon conspiracy subreddits, we find that self-disclosures of dissonance correlate with a significant decrease in user contributions and ultimately with their departure from the community. Our work offers a systematic framework for uncovering the dimensions and coded language related to QAnon social imaginaries and can serve as a toolbox for studying other conspiracy theories across different platforms. We also contribute a computational framework for identifying dissonance self-disclosures and measuring the changes in user engagement surrounding dissonance. Our work provide insights into designing dissonance based interventions that can potentially dissuade conspiracists from engaging in online conspiracy discussion communities. 

Widespread conspiracy theories, like those motivating anti-vaccination attitudes or climate change denial, propel collective action, and bear society-wide consequences. Yet, empirical research has largely studied conspiracy theory adoption as an individual pursuit, rather than as a socially mediated process. What makes users join communities endorsing and spreading conspiracy theories? We leverage longitudinal data from 56 conspiracy communities on Reddit to compare individual and social factors determining which users join the communities. Using a quasi-experimental approach, we first identify 30K future conspiracists?(FC) and30K matched non-conspiracists?(NC). We then provide empirical evidence of the importance of social factors across six dimensions relative to the individual factors by analyzing 6 million Reddit comments and posts. Specifically, in social factors, we find that dyadic interactions with members of the conspiracy communities and marginalization outside of the conspiracy communities are the most important social precursors to conspiracy joining-even outperforming individual factor baselines. Our results offer quantitative backing to understand social processes and echo chamber effects in conspiratorial engagement, with important implications for democratic institutions and online communities.