Why do the comments on Weibo and Toutiao for the same news have two different styles?

When browsing Weibo, you will often find that the comment styles of users on different platforms vary greatly. The most famous is the comment section of NetEase News . However, what I want to analyze here is the difference in users between Weibo and Toutiao , because several times when I looked at these apps, I found that for the same piece of news, the public opinion atmosphere on the two platforms is quite different.

1. Case phenomenon

For all news, the top 5 comments with the highest number of likes in the comment area are selected:

1. The TV drama censorship regulations were promulgated in early July, and Professor Li Yinhe made relevant remarks

(1) Weibo

"Why doesn't our society accept homosexuals? Because in our culture, reproduction is regarded as the purpose, ignorance is regarded as purity, stupidity is regarded as virtue, and prejudice is regarded as principle. Love should be the attitude of one soul towards another soul, not the reaction of one organ to another organ." - "Seeing" The reason why the rainbow is beautiful is that she accepts every color. It seems that those people who have the most promiscuous relationships between men and women are more secretive about sex. One day I will tell my parents, friends, teachers and classmates that I am a homosexual, but I have not done anything to kill or burn anyone, slander, hurt or curse anyone. I am becoming better, so better that I can love you without caring about other people's opinions. I have known since junior high school that Teacher Li has always been speaking out for homosexuality. I thought that the legalization of homosexuality in Taiwan would promote mainland China's acceptance of homosexuality, but I didn't expect it to regress so suddenly. It is really sad to see the discriminatory comments from homosexuals. Love is not gender-specific; we are blinded by the idea of ​​reproducing offspring.

Sentiment analysis: positive 22.95%, negative 77.05%

(2) Headlines

Here in Shandong, if you are a homosexual, no one will care about you, but your parents will beat you to death in a minute. Homosexuality is deformed and perverted! I support classifying homosexuality as a sexual deviance. Homosexuality is indeed a perversion, otherwise how do we explain that heterosexuality is the norm? I have no objection to other people being homosexual, but if my own child dares to be homosexual, I will beat him to death in a matter of minutes. Homosexuality is a disease. It seems that animals don't have homosexuality, right?

Sentiment analysis: positive 13.12%, negative 86.88%

2. Live broadcast ban incident: the Ministry of Public Security shut down some live broadcast platforms

(1) Weibo

Now there is only one platform that has lasted for a long time and has always been very popular! Where are the foreign girls in Shanshui Manor? I won’t catch people spreading rumors, I’ll just take advantage of the benefits… There’s no reward for reporting, so I won’t report anymore. In addition to cracking down on pornography and illegal publications, we also have to cure the brain damage. Let’s start with Kuaishou!

Sentiment analysis: positive 38.86%, negative 61.14%

(2) Headlines

Shake your butt and show off your breasts. There's hair to see. Should be closed entirely. What else can be broadcasted in live broadcasts besides some vulgar and pornographic broadcasts and some double-click 666? It is recommended to shut down and purify the environment. Best to turn them all off. There are too many vulgar live broadcasts on Kuaishou with no moral bottom line, and more and more of them are children and teenagers. Strongly condemn Kuaishou. My cousin was live streaming on Kuaishou, eating sausages, wearing a bikini, and dancing wildly in the car. My classmate sent this video to me. It was so disgusting. I really hope to turn off these vulgar live streaming videos.

Sentiment analysis: positive 11.43%, negative 88.57%

3. First experience of high-speed rail takeaway, some passengers were deceived

(1) Weibo

There will be problems at the beginning, and it is difficult to implement. We cannot extend the stop time because of this. If we stop at a station for one more minute, we will be back to the green-skinned train. We will wait and see that there will definitely be a solution. In the end, I will just push the ticket silently. This is nothing. The delivery guy was just embarrassed because he was trapped in the carriage and had to sit for one more stop. To be honest, the cost-effectiveness of high-speed rail lunch boxes is really low! Both EMUs and high-speed railways need to be improved in this regard. Now that high-speed railway food delivery is just getting started, it still needs some support and tolerance. Rome was not built in a day, and I believe that things will get better in the future. In fact, it is really convenient. As long as the merchant is familiar with the process, this problem will not occur. Yesterday KFC was very punctual, and the chicken wings were still hot and the drink was ice cold when it reached me. Anyway, I enjoyed the meal very much, but it was hard for the staff to deliver it to my seat. Does anyone want to eat Haidilao on the high-speed rail?

Sentiment analysis: positive 27.11%, negative 72.89%

(2) Headlines

What is the mentality of those who eat on the high-speed rail? Is this the only thing missing? The longest one is about 6 hours. It’s only about 5 hours until dinner time! Eat something before getting on the train. Bring some bread or something, it should be fine for the 6-hour train ride. I had to eat on the train. It was such a small space, and I had to bend over and eat without even being able to stretch my hands. Aren't you sick? What can’t you eat after getting off the train? Those who eat instant noodles, leeks and the like on the train are scum! You think too much. 1. The delivery guy is an internal staff of the high-speed railway. 2. The meals ordered are all from restaurants and fast food restaurants inside the high-speed railway station. There is no such thing as a delivery guy entering the station. I don’t like eating in public places, especially smelly food, and I also don’t like others eating smelly food in public places. High-speed rail is fast, and it usually only takes two or three hours to cross provinces. The delivery guy was stuck at security check. I've never taken a long-distance train, and I guess the smell at mealtime would be unbearable. Of course, it's impossible not to eat, the sealed space is really uncomfortable!

Sentiment analysis: positive 9.21%, negative 90.79%

4. The police stopped the sharing of beds

(1) Weibo

When will I have a shared girlfriend? If you live alone, don't take a nap in the afternoon. Sleeping until six or seven o'clock, when you open your eyes and look at the hazy dark sky and the empty room, you will feel abandoned by the whole world. Loneliness is fully reflected at that moment. Shared sex rooms must have affected the business of surrounding hotels. The concept of "sharing" was first proposed in "My Fair Princess", as evidenced by the song: Let us live freely and leisurely in the world, galloping on horseback and sharing the prosperity of the world... Don't insult the word "sharing".

Sentiment analysis: positive 7.42%, negative 92.58%

(2) Headlines

For every shared bed, one house is sold less, and this must be stopped resolutely. The introduction of shared rooms has had an impact on the hotel industry. People who wanted to stay cheaply were unexpectedly suppressed, and it is difficult for ordinary people to get a bargain. Sharing is actually a false proposition. Huge amounts of money are spent, and some projects have no visible results. You should know that the origins of a large part of the investors' money are questionable. There are too many gray areas in China, and the country does not actually have strict supervision. This is China. Hehehe. Sharing sex life is a market with unlimited potential, but it will definitely be labeled as pornographic. It’s obviously for rent and sharing! Deceiving the world and stealing fame.

Sentiment analysis: positive 11.42%, negative 88.58%

2. Case Analysis

Judging from the public opinions of the above four news articles, most of the negative emotions in the headline comments are higher than those on Weibo. Judging from the wording, the comments made by Toutiao users have a stronger absolute tone. Specifically, in the first news article, the Weibo post related to Li Yinhe, the opinions of users on Weibo and Toutiao were split, which was the biggest difference among the several cases. In terms of language description, Weibo users' descriptions were more moderate, but there was also a lot of negative emotions. The words used by Toutiao users were obviously more extreme. In the second article, the Ministry of Public Security shut down some live broadcasts. The comments from Weibo users were teasing and more entertaining. The reactions from Toutiao users were consistent with the previous ones, with more absolute descriptors. The third article was about a malfunction in the high-speed rail takeaway food. Most Weibo users expressed their recognition and understanding for this, and there was a certain amount of encouragement. The comments from Toutiao users focused more on the issue of eating, and the tone was still strong. In the fourth article, the shared beds were sealed off, and there was not much difference between the two sides.

Let’s look at these phenomena through some data. The sentiment analysis is mainly done through part of speech. We have segmented all the above comments and counted the proportion of various types of parts of speech in the comments on both platforms. It can be seen that, apart from punctuation marks, verbs, adverbs and nouns account for the majority. These three parts of speech have the greatest impact on the emotional tendency of the entire sentence. In addition to these three types, we also need to analyze adjectives. In language description, compared with verbs and nouns, the selection and description of adjectives are more subjective and more emotional.

We conducted sentiment analysis on nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs separately, as shown in the table below. It can be clearly seen that for nouns, adjectives, and verbs, the sentiment of Weibo is more positive, while for adverbs, the sentiment of Toutiao is more positive. The biggest difference is in adjectives. The positive sentiment index of Weibo is 74.81%, while that of Toutiao is only 2.77%. This shows that people's use of adjectives is more subjective and emotional.

All part-of-speech analysis and sentiment analysis in this article use NLP tools .

3. User Attribute Analysis

From the above phenomenon data, we can see that the comments posted by Toutiao users are generally more negative and more subjective. We would like to find out why there is such a difference through user attributes. The following data only shows relative differences. It is not convenient to show specific data and is for reference only.

1. Basic attributes

In terms of age, Weibo users are younger. Among users aged 30 and above, Toutiao accounts for a significantly larger proportion than Weibo. In terms of gender, the proportion of female monthly active users on Weibo is 70% higher than that of monthly active users on Toutiao. For female users , browsing information about idols on Weibo is the most common usage scenario. In terms of academic qualifications, there is not much difference between the master and doctoral groups. Among the high school and undergraduate groups, Weibo accounts account for a larger proportion, while among the technical secondary school and junior high school and elementary school groups, Toutiao accounts for a slightly larger proportion. Therefore, we can preliminarily conclude that Weibo users have a slightly higher academic level than Toutiao users.

The Weibo platform is an open self-media environment where users can easily acquire information on their own initiative. News clients such as Toutiao acquire information passively, and users have to watch whatever the App gives them. For news clients with intelligent recommendations such as Toutiao, the more deeply users use them, the less likely they are to see other types of information, because the App recommends the same type of information to users. Therefore, personalized recommendations may reduce users' ability to actively obtain information. ]

It is possible to guess that Weibo users are younger, more educated, and more receptive to new things and new ideas. On the contrary, Toutiao users may be more accustomed to receiving information passively.

2. Interest attributes

From the game attributes, it is obvious that Weibo users have stronger interest attributes than Toutiao users. Perhaps, the higher acceptance of games has cultivated the gamification mindset of this group of users. When it comes to reading, traveling, food, and photography, there are still more Weibo users, which confirms the point in the previous section: the user base is younger, more receptive to new ideas and perspectives, and pursues a better quality of life.

3. Other attributes

From the perspective of city classification, there is not much difference. Among them, Weibo users are more distributed in first- and second-tier cities, while Toutiao users are more dominant in third- and fourth-tier cities. In terms of mobile phone usage habits, Weibo users still dominate the average number of daily app openings. It can be seen that this is a group of heavy mobile phone users who are accustomed to interacting with the world through their mobile phones.

IV. Conclusion

First, through phenomenon analysis, we found that Weibo users’ comments tend to be positive, optimistic, and fun, while Toutiao users’ comments tend to be slightly extreme and negative. Through user attribute analysis, we found that Weibo users are younger, while Toutiao users have relatively lower educational levels. This results in differences in information acquisition and cognition between the two user groups, which leads to the differences in user comment tendencies that we see.