{"paper":{"title":"\"F*** You Biden\": Cross-Partisan Electoral Toxicity on X","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Republican-leaning posts on X are more toxic than Democratic ones, yet Democratic posts attract more toxic replies because Republicans generate most cross-partisan replies.","cross_cats":["cs.CY"],"primary_cat":"cs.SI","authors_text":"Anindya Mondal, Danishjeet Singh, Filippo Menczer","submitted_at":"2026-04-10T15:19:44Z","abstract_excerpt":"Political discourse on social media has grown increasingly toxic, with electoral periods amplifying partisan hostility and cross-group attacks. Yet it remains unclear whether toxicity in online political speech reflects how partisans communicate within their own circles, or how aggressively they engage with the opposition. Disentangling these dynamics is critical for understanding online political hostility and for designing effective content moderation. We examine this question at scale using a large collection of original posts and replies from X (formerly Twitter), collected during the 2024"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"Republican-leaning posts are significantly more toxic than Democratic-leaning posts, yet Democratic-leaning posts attract significantly more toxic replies. The elevated toxicity directed at Democratic content is better explained by the volume of Republican cross-partisan replies.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The human-validated large language model accurately classifies the political alignment of posts and users, and the Perspective API provides an unbiased measure of toxicity across partisan lines.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Republican posts are more toxic than Democratic ones, but Democratic content draws more toxic replies due to higher volume of Republican cross-partisan engagement.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Republican-leaning posts on X are more toxic than Democratic ones, yet Democratic posts attract more toxic replies because Republicans generate most cross-partisan replies.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"c6e55c4fd51c84f2d3958efcc9237858472eadc18b64edbc11b25017575115f9"},"source":{"id":"2605.12526","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"3c5b449b-83b8-4bc8-a520-27a5f06a4fb9","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-14T21:48:20.433397Z","strongest_claim":"Republican-leaning posts are significantly more toxic than Democratic-leaning posts, yet Democratic-leaning posts attract significantly more toxic replies. The elevated toxicity directed at Democratic content is better explained by the volume of Republican cross-partisan replies.","one_line_summary":"Republican posts are more toxic than Democratic ones, but Democratic content draws more toxic replies due to higher volume of Republican cross-partisan engagement.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The human-validated large language model accurately classifies the political alignment of posts and users, and the Perspective API provides an unbiased measure of toxicity across partisan lines.","pith_extraction_headline":"Republican-leaning posts on X are more toxic than Democratic ones, yet Democratic posts attract more toxic replies because Republicans generate most cross-partisan replies."},"references":{"count":21,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"Political Polarization on Twitter , url =","work_id":"dc40b7c4-4212-41b8-bcd4-5c811752797f","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"Jana Belschner , title =","work_id":"569ffbf2-16fd-4e69-a14a-f935014debc9","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2022,"title":"Political Resources and Online Political Hostility: How and Why Hostility Is More Prevalent Among the Resourceful , author=. 2022 , note=","work_id":"83ddc2f5-4d58-423a-86bf-910cd14bf5cf","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"LLMs left, right, and center: Assessing GPT's capabilities to label political bias from web domains , author=. ArXiv , year=","work_id":"88e1f2e1-4d14-4305-acf3-58ac93adb841","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2024,"title":"2024 , url =","work_id":"0dceec75-4f5a-401c-86f2-b3356f180c3e","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":21,"snapshot_sha256":"d8c5bfc77e2dee527c5e5ad46c477e933e5e615d62ef392934ccaccd004b2623","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"36878fa925a88ec885b0f268d51eab59304cfc97a68df3326bc7627294bca445"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}