Throughout history, conspiracy theories have caused prejudice, witch hunts, revolutions, and genocide. They have motivated terrorists, driven people to reject mainstream medicine, and led to the dismissal of science. Belief in conspiracy theories increases partisanship, reduces public policy efficacy, political legitimacy, political engagement, institutional trust, harms public health, and increases the likelihood of political violence. Such beliefs are dismissed as the inconsequential narratives and absurd preoccupation of society's fringe. However, conspiratorial beliefs are ubiquitous in American society, with a majority of Americans believed in at least one conspiracy theory.

An important factor influencing individuals' perception of conspiracy theories is their exposure to these theories. This is both intuitive and widely noted in the literature. However, how these theories spread is understudied. This paper holds that the presence of negative emotive language in conspiratorial messaging influences the dissemination of these theories online.

The relationship between negative emotive language in conspiratorial messaging and their dissemination is studied through Facebook. This is done by investigating the extent to which negative emotive language in conspiratorial news articles influences the number of interactions they receive. The level of negative emotions will be measured using a dictionary approach on conspiratorial news articles across the United States written media. These article's URLs are matched to Facebook shares through Facebook's CrowdTangle tool. Through this investigation, it is demonstrated that articles that the presence of negative emotions within conspiratorial articles positively influences their dissemination online.