Quick, Community-Specific Learning: How Distinctive Toxicity Norms Are Maintained in Political Subreddits

Examining political subreddits with distinctive, stable toxicity levels, the study finds the largest driver of norm stability is pre-entry learning: newcomers' first comments already differ from their own prior behavior elsewhere and nearly match the toxicity of the community they are joining. Shows how toxic communities self-perpetuate through rapid newcomer adaptation rather than moderation alone.