Shockwaves and turbulence across social media

Abstract

Online communities featuring 'anti-X' hate and extremism, somehow thrive online despite moderator pressure. We present a first-principles theory of their dynamics, which accounts for the fact that the online population comprises diverse individuals and evolves in time. The resulting equation represents a novel generalization of nonlinear fluid physics and explains the observed behavior across scales. Its shockwave-like solutions explain how, why and when such activity rises from 'out-of-nowhere', and show how it can be delayed, re-shaped and even prevented by adjusting the online collective chemistry. This theory and findings should also be applicable to anti-X activity in next-generation ecosystems featuring blockchain platforms and Metaverses.