In the wake of the deadly riot on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol that President Donald Trump strongly promoted on social media, platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and others have finally banned the president.
The result? A sudden decline in the online dissemination of misinformation.
According to research from Zignal Labs, which was reported by the Washington Post on Saturday, online misinformation about election fraud during the week plunged 73 percent after Twitter’s decision to ban Trump on January 8.
Which means the ban, to the extent that the move and the related scrubbing of right-wing conspiracy theories were aimed at limiting disinformation, seems to be working. Not only did the dissemination of misinformation slow down, but research indicates that online discussion on the topics that motivated the Capitol riot also diminished.
“Zignal has found that the use of hashtags associated with the Capitol riot has also dropped significantly,” writes the Post, which summarizes Zignal’s research. “The mention of the hashtag #FightforTrump, which was widely used on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media services in the week before the rally, fell by 95 percent. #HoldTheLine and the term ‘March for Trump’ have also dropped more than 95 percent. ”
The main argument for banning Trump was that despite the conspiracy theories, smears and misinformation he had spread on Twitter and other platforms for years, it was important that social media companies allow him to communicate freely with the public. .
But this line of thinking has diminished in the weeks since Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden, as the president’s posts have increasingly focused on spreading lies about the election stolen from him and the unrest, including promoting the ” Stop the Steal “on January 6th. protests that preceded the violent takeover of the Capitol.
The breaking point finally came in the days after the violence. Instead of blaming the rioters unequivocally, Trump defended them and wrote in a tweet he posted as law enforcement, the Capitol is still trying to get rid of on January 6: ‘These are the things and events that happens when a sacred victory in the election is so unceremonious & maliciously stripped. ”
Hours earlier, Trump had posted a tweet in which Vice President Mike Pence was attacked, even as rioters, some of whom threatened ‘Hang Mike Pence’, and it was dangerous to encounter the Vice President as he was hastily evacuated from the Senate chamber. )
Then, on January 8, Trump posted a tweet announcing that he would not attend the election of President Joe Biden on January 20. Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account hours later, writing in a blog post that his inauguration tweet is being interpreted online by his supporters as ‘encouragement for those who might consider violent considerations that the inauguration would be a‘ safe ’target as he would not attend. ”
(Facebook has so far only suspended Trump’s account until the end of his presidential term.)
In the eight days since then, Trump has made use of tweeted statements by the White House press office. He characterized the movements of Facebook, Twitter and others as an attack on freedom of speech, but at no stage did he withdraw or apologize for spreading misinformation about the election. Nor did he acknowledge the reality that Biden’s victory over him was legal.
Trump has reportedly considered opening an account on Parler, a social media platform favored by conservatives and many on the right because of his lax approach to content moderation, where extremism thrives.
But Amazon has suspended Parler from its web hosting service after revelations that Trump supporters used it as a forum to organize the Capitol riot, and it is unclear if it will ever be online again.
Meanwhile, reports are swirling that Trump is spending his last days in the White House isolated and embittered. It turns out that watching cable news is not so enjoyable if you can not make tens of millions of Twitter fans live comment on it. Incorrect information also does not seem to thrive when its largest suppliers are flattened.