After Twitter banned Trump, misinfo on the site fell dramatically

[NelsonG]

In the week following Twitter's permanent ban of President Donald Trump, media intelligence company Zignal Labs found that the spread of misinformation on the social media platform took a sharp fall.

Between Jan. 9 and 15, Zignal found there was a 73 percent decline in tweets about election fraud compared to the week before Trump was banned, according to a report shared with Mashable (first reported by The Washington Post). Along with Trump's ban, there were sweeping bans on accounts that spread QAnon conspiracies, which undoubtedly also helped to stem the flow of misinformation.

The data shows that when platforms like Twitter and Facebook decide to act against the kind of rhetoric that leads to things like deadly assaults on the U.S. Capitol Building, it can have a tangible impact on the kinds of conversations that are happening on social media. When hatred and dangerous lies are deplatformed, it can stop these movements from snowballing into real-world actions with real-world consequences. Read more...

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