Post-January 6th deplatforming reduced the reach of misinformation on Twitter

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mccabe, Stefan D.; Ferrari, Diogo; Green, Jon; Lazer, David M. J.; Esterling, Kevin M.
• 署名单位: George Washington University; University of California System; University of California Riverside; Duke University; Northeastern University; Harvard University; University of California System; University of California Riverside
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-4715
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07524-8
• 发表日期: 2024-06-06
• 关键词: social media; difference; news

摘要

The social media platforms of the twenty-first century have an enormous role in regulating speech in the USA and worldwide1. However, there has been little research on platform-wide interventions on speech2,3. Here we evaluate the effect of the decision by Twitter to suddenly deplatform 70,000 misinformation traffickers in response to the violence at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 (a series of events commonly known as and referred to here as 'January 6th'). Using a panel of more than 500,000 active Twitter users4,5 and natural experimental designs6,7, we evaluate the effects of this intervention on the circulation of misinformation on Twitter. We show that the intervention reduced circulation of misinformation by the deplatformed users as well as by those who followed the deplatformed users, though we cannot identify the magnitude of the causal estimates owing to the co-occurrence of the deplatforming intervention with the events surrounding January 6th. We also find that many of the misinformation traffickers who were not deplatformed left Twitter following the intervention. The results inform the historical record surrounding the insurrection, a momentous event in US history, and indicate the capacity of social media platforms to control the circulation of misinformation, and more generally to regulate public discourse. Difference-in-differences analysis indicates that the decision by Twitter to deplatform 70,000 users following the events at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 had wider effects on the spread of misinformation.