TBBT: r/darkhumorandmemes Ban Intervention (2020)

A Reddit (r/darkhumorandmemes ban intervention, 2020) dataset of 15,594 pre-ban posts from banned community, 185,567 pre-ban control posts, 139,739 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/darkhumorandmemes: 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#Darkhumorandmemes#Icwsm#Matched control#Subreddit ban#The big bang theory

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Analytics

The interactive network needs JavaScript.

· graph.json

The full graph has 9,370 nodes; this view shows the 1,000-node sample the pipeline drew for display. Node size is centrality, colour is community.

9.4K
Nodes
35.3K
Edges
4.02e-04
Density
1
Components
-0.154
Assortativity
0.0%
Reciprocity
5.4K
Bridges
Most central nodes
DarkHumorAndMemes0.05966
AskReddit0.03117
memes0.02818
dankmemes0.0254
cursedcomments0.0206
PublicFreakout0.01943
teenagers0.019
nextfuckinglevel0.01814
gaming0.01793
funny0.01772
Content metrics

340,900 records scored · min–maxmean ± 0.675 σ (the interquartile range if the values are roughly normal)mean

scoreμ 8.825 ± 99.99
min -690max 20.6K
is banned4.6% true
true 4.6%false 95.4%
is pre ban59.0% true
true 59.0%false 41.0%
is post ban41.0% true
true 41.0%false 59.0%
6.2
Flesch–Kincaid grade
US school grade level
6.6
Automated readability index
Frequent terms
likedonpeoplenicedarkfuckingfuckshitgoodthinkknowreposttimesubbotfunnyredditrightbadmemecommentyeahfindpostgotbestmanthankthingwantdoesnisnjokeactuallysaidmeandidnwaymemesniggersayingwantsneedchecklolyesbetteruseworstlook
Topic clusters

Topic 0

und
das
german
mein
nein
kanka
germany
russian

Topic 1

meme
sub
post
facebook
steal
antimeme
shit
subreddit

Topic 2

joke
funny
laugh
humor
think
attempt
time
irony

Topic 3

kill
die
abortion
dead
murder
death
suicide
child

Topic 4

gender
gay
sex
trans
woman
people
male
female

Topic 5

time
month
post
ago
second
late
reposte
week

Topic 6

repost
reposte
stop
fucking
meme
reposter
fuck
dankmeme

Topic 7

repost
reposter
reposte
old
sub
alert
reposti
legendary

Topic 8

dark
meme
sub
normie
humor
racist
joke
humour

Topic 9

sub
link
comment
post
subreddit
reddit
flair
click

Topic 10

video
watch
episode
hentai
season
screenshot
movie
anime

Topic 11

china
virus
corona
coronavirus
flu
chinese
infect
disease
Show all 47 topics

Topic 12

hitler
jews
nazi
holocaust
jewish
jew
kill
million

Topic 13

dark
darkness
bout
mode
light
suppose
wow
sunny

Topic 14

eat
meat
milk
food
sandwich
baby
son
kid

Topic 15

dick
penis
cock
woman
cum
wife
suck
dog

Topic 16

nice
good
okay
beautiful
alright
work
job
great

Topic 17

vote
bot
register
webpage
view
result
reply
repostsleuthbot

Topic 18

religion
islam
christianity
muslim
muslims
woman
christian
people

Topic 19

game
play
content
xbox
creative
add
boss
new

Topic 20

gas
head
hit
water
throw
chamber
hang
rope

Topic 21

trump
government
capitalism
states
libtard
people
free
liberal

Topic 22

retard
cringe
hate
cunt
retarded
autism
stfu
fucking

Topic 23

slave
rape
pedophile
black
pedo
white
allegation
build

Topic 24

fuck
bitch
mom
asshole
fucking
suck
dick
nigga

Topic 25

think
look
thing
coincidence
ment
wonder
thought
idea

Topic 26

save
pay
hear
audio
money
cost
headphone
expensive

Topic 27

humor
dark
humour
funny
humorous
joke
sad
finally

Topic 28

upvote
downvote
upvoted
deserve
post
know
true
downvoted

Topic 29

look
face
mouth
like
hair
muscle
nose
wear

Topic 30

gun
shoot
shotgun
weapon
pistol
range
rifle
drum

Topic 31

bot
gtfo
good
normie
yoo

Topic 32

friend
hey
moment
read
hello
buddy
pal
credit

Topic 33

confirm
believe
bro
answer
test
proof
shall
word

Topic 34

nigger
tigger
digger
sand
black
word
ooh
board

Topic 35

forget
delete
forgot
stop
hide
remove
ignore
skip

Topic 36

emoji
insta
instagram
tiktok
normie
emojipolice
emojis
use

Topic 37

hope
bat
holy
wish
chance
wow
sadly
kingdom

Topic 38

thank
king
sherlock
awe
seizure
bhrata
bush
sob

Topic 39

thank
okay
appreciate
buddy
man
redditor
good
congrat

Topic 40

lil
girl
dad
dog
bear
daddy
father
daughter

Topic 41

eye
hurt
piss
toilet
fart
paper
blind
tear

Topic 42

fuck
fucking
idgaf
fuckable
fucka
motha
camper
sake

Topic 43

people
surprised
weird
crazy
kinky
fetish
physical
mental

Topic 44

know
lol
understand
scar
meaning
right
wish
derive

Topic 45

feel
lmao
lmfao
feeling
like
plan
right
sound

Topic 46

yes
yeah
yea
floor
definitely
yep
sir
yessss
Top hashtags
#x200b107
#16
#fucking5
#no4
#23
#32
#blocked2
#btd52
#f2
#imgrc2
#nohomo2
#not2
#r2
#who2
#01
#101
#111
#121
#131
#141
Top emoji
😂121
👨80
👩80
🍆76
🇲72
🇸65
🇬64
🤣57
🇦56
🇨56
🇹56
🇧48
🇪46
🇳46
🇮45

Computed over the full corpus.

Record

Catalog key
tbbt-2020-darkhumorandmemes
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
340,900
Nodes
9,370
Edges
35,258 (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, 129.7 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/darkhumorandmemes 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/darkhumorandmemes Ban Intervention (2020). 2026, doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42780.

BibTeX · RIS · CSL-JSON

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