TBBT: r/the_donald Ban Intervention (2020)

A Reddit (r/the_donald ban intervention, 2020) dataset of 221,682 pre-ban posts from banned community, 680,784 pre-ban control posts, 488,109 post-ban control posts, collected by Cerulli et al. via Reddit API (ICWSM 2026). Each record contains comment ID, selftext (post body), author (pseudonymized), subreddit, score, created_utc, split label (in-before/out-before/out-after). TBBT r/the_donald: pre- and post-ban Reddit dataset from The Big Ban Theory — standardized 3-month window around the 2020 moderation intervention with matched control communities. Suitable for content moderation effects, community migration, deplatforming research, pre/post intervention analysis, Reddit ban studies.

#Ban intervention#Icwsm#Matched control#Subreddit ban#The big bang theory#The donald#Trump

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Analytics

The interactive network needs JavaScript.

· graph.json

The full graph has 17,230 nodes; this view shows the 1,000-node sample the pipeline drew for display. Node size is centrality, colour is community.

17.2K
Nodes
104.5K
Edges
3.52e-04
Density
1
Components
-0.1682
Assortativity
0.0%
Reciprocity
8.1K
Bridges
Most central nodes
The_Donald0.1623
AskReddit0.05415
pics0.04638
politics0.04475
Conservative0.0444
PublicFreakout0.04243
todayilearned0.03784
funny0.03715
news0.03622
worldnews0.03558
Content metrics

1,390,575 records scored · min–maxmean ± 0.675 σ (the interquartile range if the values are roughly normal)mean

scoreμ 7.437 ± 68.33
min -1.6Kmax 32.1K
is banned15.9% true
true 15.9%false 84.1%
is pre ban64.9% true
true 64.9%false 35.1%
is post ban35.1% true
true 35.1%false 64.9%
6.5
Flesch–Kincaid grade
US school grade level
6.9
Automated readability index
Frequent terms
liketrumppeopledonthinkknowvotetimewantgoingpresidentrightshitgoodwitnessesfuckfuckinghousewayneedschiffgotsaiddidndoesndemocratslovemanloldemsleftletdaylookimpeachmentstatethingyearsguysenatesureactuallygreatcountrybadworknewpartybetterbelieve
Topic clusters

Topic 0

think
time
day
start
happen
wait
miss
fire

Topic 1

impeachment
biden
witness
impeach
house
trump
senate
president

Topic 2

bernie
democrats
democrat
dems
party
dnc
republican
bloomberg

Topic 3

vote
state
election
voter
pay
government
popular
candidate

Topic 4

trump
president
donald
win
like
supporter
thing
know

Topic 5

schiff
nadler
adam
jerry
witness
question
whistleblower
house

Topic 6

look
like
picture
hair
dick
face
nose
piss

Topic 7

witness
trial
evidence
prove
crime
case
fair
house

Topic 8

fuck
idiot
erdogan
bitch
hate
dumb
shit
ugly

Topic 9

white
racist
diversity
black
people
woman
man
racism

Topic 10

salt
eat
soy
cheese
corn
drink
sauce
bat

Topic 11

god
religion
christian
believe
woman
people
faith
religious
Show all 21 topics

Topic 12

china
virus
chinese
coronavirus
quarantine
wuhan
flu
lab

Topic 13

laugh
lol
funny
hilarious
penguin
hahahaha
heh
holy

Topic 14

brexit
pede
flag
congrat
happy
nigel
proud
congratulation

Topic 15

leftist
liberal
people
left
conservative
antifa
like
hate

Topic 16

cnn
news
fake
fox
journalist
conspiracy
theory
fuck

Topic 17

romney
murkowski
collins
vote
kavanaugh
mitt
witness
fuck

Topic 18

hear
like
talk
listen
sound
comment
tell
post

Topic 19

win
play
chiefs
nfl
watch
superbowl
football
game

Topic 20

bolton
roberts
john
tie
book
question
justice
chief
Top hashtags
#x200b47
#i19
#fuck18
#cite_note17
#he14
#they14
#the13
#this11
#what10
#it9
#no9
#trump9
#why9
#chucky8
#you8
#just7
#16
#how6
#not6
#and5
Top emoji
🤣218
😂140
🏻116
🇺83
🇸75
👌65
🚧64
😭44
🐢40
👍38
🏼35
👉27
🏽26
👇26
👆25

Computed over the full corpus.

Record

Catalog key
tbbt-2020-the_donald
Authors
Cerulli, Aldo; Cima, Lorenzo; Tessa, Benedetta; Tardelli, Serena; Cresci, Stefano
Year
2026
Source paper
The Big Ban Theory: A Pre- and Post-Intervention Dataset of Online Content Moderation Actions
DOI / arXiv
10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42780
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0)
Records
1,390,575
Nodes
17,230
Edges
104,503 (directed)
Attributes
nodes have no attributes; edges have no attributes
Languages
en
Collected
2020 (3 months pre/post ban) (2020s)
Tasks
From the graph: link prediction, community detection
Region
Global (inferred: the platform is used worldwide)

Provenance

Originally published at
https://zenodo.org/records/18245670 link checked
Hosted copy
Mirrored on echo.directory on 2026-10-21, 604.0 MB across 3 files. Checksums in MANIFEST.json.

Citations

The Big Ban Theory: A Pre- and Post-Intervention Dataset of Online Content Moderation Actions
Aldo Cerulli, Lorenzo Cima, Benedetta Tessa, S. Tardelli, Stefano Cresci
Journal Article · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · 2026

4
citations
few citations so far
0
influential citations
0% of all citations

Cited by

Citation data from Semantic Scholar, retrieved 2026-10-22.

How to cite

BibTeX

@misc{echo2026,
  title  = {ECHO: Exploratory Compendium of Humanity Online},
  author = {Switzer, Braden and Zafarani, Reza},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://echo.directory},
  note   = {Syracuse University}
}

@article{Cerulli_2026,
  title     = {The Big Ban Theory: A Pre- and Post-Intervention Dataset of Online Content Moderation Actions},
  volume    = {20},
  issn      = {2162-3449},
  url       = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42780},
  doi       = {10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42780},
  number    = {1},
  journal   = {Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media},
  publisher = {Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
  author    = {Cerulli, Aldo and Cima, Lorenzo and Tessa, Benedetta and Tardelli, Serena and Cresci, Stefano},
  year      = {2026},
  month     = May,
  pages     = {2756–2767}
}

APA

Switzer, B., & Zafarani, R. (2026). ECHO: Exploratory Compendium of Humanity Online [Data repository]. Syracuse University. https://echo.directory

Cerulli, A., Cima, L., Tessa, B., Tardelli, S., & Cresci, S. (2026). TBBT: r/the_donald Ban Intervention (2020) [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42780

MLA

Switzer, Braden, and Reza Zafarani. ECHO: Exploratory Compendium of Humanity Online. Syracuse University, 2026, echo.directory.

Cerulli, Aldo, et al. TBBT: r/the_donald Ban Intervention (2020). 2026, doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42780.

BibTeX · RIS · CSL-JSON

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