Donald Trump Twitter Ban Leads To Drop In Election Misinformation
- by Nick Cohen
- in Industry
- — Jan 20, 2021
President Trump's everlasting ban from Twitter helped remove large clouds of misinformation that have been polluting social-media networks, based on new analysis.
Twitter's ban of Trump on January 8, after years in which @realDonaldTrump was a potent online megaphone, has been particularly significant in curbing his ability to push misleading claims about what state and federal officials have called a free and fair election on November 3.
"Online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, research firm Zignal Labs has found, underscoring the power of tech companies to limit the falsehoods poisoning public debate when they act aggressively", The Washington Post reported Saturday.
That got here after Twitter lastly banned Trump on January 8, with the corporate citing the danger of "additional incitement of violence" after the lethal assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters.
Trump is considered responsible for spreading misleading information across major social media about the results of the last US election, claiming that Joe Biden would have won by defrauding votes around the country - without presenting tangible evidence and contradicting facts.
There are other factors that could have contributed to the decline, including diminished hopes on the far right of overturning the presidential election after Congress affirmed Joe Biden's electoral victory.
Later on, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey emphasised that he stands by Twitter's decision to ban Trump's page, but that the move may be fraught with "real and significant ramifications" and may create a "dangerous" precedent. And final Monday Fb stated it had began to take away content material with the phrase "cease the steal".
Meanwhile, a study by the Election Integrity Partnership (released before the 2020 USA election) found that a group of 20 widely followed pro-Trump Twitter accounts - including Trump's and Sean Hannity's - accounted for 20% of retweets about voting misinformation, per the Washington Post report.
