Following the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the subreddit r/conspiracy experienced a significant visibility shock that brought mainstream users into direct contact with established conspiracy narratives. In this work, we explore how large-scale surges in public attention reshape participation and discourse within online conspiracy communities. We ask whether a sudden increase in exposure changes who join r/conspiracy, how long they stay, and how they adapt linguistically, compared with users who arrive through organic discovery. Using a computational framework that combines toxicity scores, survival analysis, and lexical and semantic measures over a period of 12 months, we observe that mainstream visibility is is associated with patterns consistent with a selection mechanism rather than a simple amplifier. Users who join the conspiracy community during the arrest-period tend to show higher linguistic similarity to core users, especially regarding linguistic and thematic norms and showing more stable engagement over time. By contrast, users who arrive during the height of public visibility remain semantically distant from core discourse and participate more briefly. Overall, we find that mainstream visibility is connected with changes in audience size, community composition, and linguistic cohesion. However, incidental exposure during attention shocks does not typically produce durable, integrated community members. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of how external events and platform visibility influence the growth and evolution of conspiracy spaces, offering insights for the design of responsible and transparent recommendation systems.

翻译：摘要：在杰弗里·爱泼斯坦去世后，Reddit子版块r/conspiracy经历了一次显著的可见性冲击，使主流用户直接接触到既有的阴谋叙事。在这项工作中，我们探讨大规模公众关注激增如何重塑在线阴谋社群内的参与和讨论。我们探究突然增加的曝光度是否改变了加入r/conspiracy的用户类型、他们停留的时间长短，以及他们如何在语言上适应，并与通过自然发现加入的用户进行比较。通过使用一个结合毒性评分、生存分析以及12个月期间的词汇和语义度量的计算框架，我们观察到主流可见性与选择机制（而非简单放大器）一致的模式相关联。在逮捕时期加入阴谋社群的用户往往表现出与核心用户更高的语言相似性，尤其是在语言和主题规范方面，并且参与度随时间推移更稳定。相比之下，在公众可见性高峰时期加入的用户在语义上仍与核心话语保持距离，且参与时间更短。总体而言，我们发现主流可见性与受众规模、社群组成和语言凝聚力的变化相关。然而，在注意力冲击期间的偶然曝光通常不会产生持久、融合的社群成员。这些结果提供了对外部事件和平台可见性如何影响阴谋空间增长和演变的更细致理解，为设计负责任且透明的推荐系统提供了见解。