Entrepreneurs often use storytelling to communicate an uncertain future, which can lead to exag- geration or outright deception. This study aims to understand how audiences jointly detect such deceptive storytelling by analyzing 399,133 Reddit posts through the lens of Truth Default Theory (TDT). Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, we identified recurring conversation patterns related to audiences’ active role in identifying and dissecting deceptive stories. This study provides insights into how audiences engage with and scrutinize narratives, moving beyond the observation of final reactions. This study also extends TDT, which traditionally focuses on individual deception detection in face-to-face interactions, to a collective setting on digital platforms. This extension includes propositions about the collective ability to detect and respond to deceptive narratives.
