Ribeiro et al. 2021 — The evolution of the manosphere across the web

What the study found

Horta Ribeiro and colleagues mapped how the manosphere has changed over time by analysing 28.8 million posts drawn from 6 dedicated forums and 51 subreddits. They found that the movement's milder, older strands — pickup artists and men's rights activists — are being displaced by more extreme communities such as incels and Men Going Their Own Way, with a substantial share of active users migrating between them. ^[1]

the newer communities are more toxic and misogynistic than the older ones

^[1]

Why it matters here

The study supplies the longitudinal backdrop for questions about whether platform action changes the manosphere's direction. It documents a broader current — users flowing from milder toward more extreme spaces — inside which any single moderation measure has to operate. That context bears directly on does deplatforming work?, where the finding is cited to show that bans act within, rather than against, this drift toward more toxic communities.