Misinformation Dropped Dramatically After Trump Twitter Ban: Report | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • TBS Graduates
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Tech
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Monday
October 02, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • TBS Graduates
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Tech
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
MONDAY, OCTOBER 02, 2023
Misinformation Dropped Dramatically After Trump Twitter Ban: Report

World+Biz

TBS Report
17 January, 2021, 11:20 am
Last modified: 17 January, 2021, 12:34 pm

Related News

  • Biden to give democracy speech, fueling 2024 race with Trump
  • Donald Trump 'missing in action,' Ron DeSantis says at second Republican debate
  • Sundarbans sees crowds of tourists following 3-month ban
  • Donald Trump found liable for fraud in New York civil case
  • 22-day ban on hilsa fishing to start on 12 Oct

Misinformation Dropped Dramatically After Trump Twitter Ban: Report

For the past several months, misleading information about the US election had been a major subject of online misinformation

TBS Report
17 January, 2021, 11:20 am
Last modified: 17 January, 2021, 12:34 pm
Election disinformation had been a major subject of online misinformation for months Photo: Reuters
Election disinformation had been a major subject of online misinformation for months Photo: Reuters

Ever since several social media sites including Twitter banned Donald Trump from their sites, online misinformation about election fraud has fallen down by 73%. 

Research firm Zignal Labs disclosed the finding recently emphasising the power of tech companies to control misinformation and circulation of fake news online.

Conversations about election fraud dropped from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 mentions across several media sites, found Zignal Labs study.

The San Francisco based analytics firm said that the difference in numbers occurred in the span of a week, reported New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) via The Washington Post.

For the past several months, misleading information about the US election had been a major subject of online misinformation. 

Trump and his allies supported this campaign heavily.

Zignal found it dropped swiftly and steeply both on Twitter itself and other platforms in the days after the Twitter ban took hold on Jan. 8.

The president and his supporters also have lost accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, Spotify, Shopify and others. Facebook called its suspension "indefinite" but left open the possibility Trump's account could later be restored.

The findings, from Saturday through Friday, highlight how falsehoods flow across social media sites - reinforcing and amplifying each other - and offer an early indication of how concerted actions against misinformation can make a difference.

Twitter's ban of Trump on Jan. 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 Nov. 3.

Trump's banishment was followed by other actions by social media sites, including Twitter's ban of more than 70,000 accounts affiliated with the baseless QAnon ideology, which played a key role in fomenting the Capitol siege on Jan. 6.

"Together, those actions will likely significantly reduce the amount of online misinformation in the near term," said Kate Starbird, disinformation researcher at the University of Washington. "What happens in the long term is still up in the air."

Zignal found that use of hashtags affiliated with the Capitol riot also dipped considerably. Mentions of the hashtag #FightforTrump, which was widely deployed across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media services in the week before the rally, dropped 95%. #HoldTheLine and the terms "March for Trump" also fell more than 95%.

The research by Zignal and other groups suggests that a powerful, integrated disinformation ecosystem - composed of high-profile influencers, rank-and-file followers and Trump himself - was central to pushing millions of Americans to reject the election results and may have trouble surviving without his social media accounts.

Researchers have found that Trump's tweets were retweeted by supporters at a remarkable rate, no matter the subject, giving him a virtually unmatched ability to shape conversation online. University of Colorado information science professor Leysia Palen declared in October, after months of research, "Trump's amplification machine is peerless."

"Bottom line is that de-platforming, especially at the scale that occurred last week, rapidly curbs momentum and ability to reach new audiences," said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks misinformation. "That said, it also has the tendency to harden the views of those already engaged in the spread of that type of false information."

Trump reportedly has been looking for a new social media home - with public speculation focusing on Parler, Gab or Telegram, all of which are popular with conservative users - but apparently has not settled on one yet. Parler has been offline for most of the week but reportedly is seeking to resume operations after Google and Apple removed it from their app stores because of scant moderation of violent talk on the site. Amazon Web Services also suspended Parler, taking it offline.

The left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America found that the number of people clicking and sharing content from right-leaning political Facebook pages also fell substantially in the days after Facebook issued its temporary ban of Trump's account.

Trump and political allies have railed for years against what they call "Big Tech," alleging bias against conservative voices without providing systematic proof and pushing companies to take a lighter hand in moderating content and punishing violators of policies. Twitter and other platforms cited policies against hate speech, inciting violence and dangerous conspiracy theories in suspending accounts in the aftermath of the Capitol attack.

Disinformation researchers consistently have found that relatively few accounts acted as "superspreaders" during the election, with their tweets and posts generating a disproportionate share of the falsehoods and misleading narratives that spread about election fraud, mail-in ballots, and other topics related to the vote.

A study released the week before the presidential election by the Election Integrity Partnership, a consortium of misinformation researchers, found that just 20 conservative, pro-Trump Twitter accounts - including the president's own @realDonaldTrump - were the original source of one-fifth of retweets pushing misleading narratives about voting.

The Zignal report also found that hashtags and phrases used by QAnon adherents declined over the past week but mentions of it and of its anonymous leader "Q" increased by 15%- a finding that could be explained by the coverage and conversation about its role in the attack on the Capitol.

A recent report by Advance Democracy, founded by Daniel J. Jones, a former FBI analyst and Senate investigator who led the review of the CIA's torture program, found that social media sites had "successfully purged" large amounts of content pushing false claims of election fraud. The report also found "incendiary and implicitly violent narratives continue to spread at the peripheries of the social media platforms we are monitoring."

This includes using the word "traitors" on Twitter to describe Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. One post on the site referring to Pence, whom Trump has repeatedly criticized in recent weeks, showed a dangling noose and the word "TREASON."

On Tik Tok, Advance Democracy found that supporters of the militia group Three Percenters were implicitly calling for violence in videos, including one that had been viewed 139,000 times. One showed a man saying, "And for all the people saying: 'It's un-American. It's an act of terrorism.' How do you think we started this country?"

Top News

Twitter / Ban / Donald Trump

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Illustration: TBS
    Why do Bangladeshi universities fare so poorly in global rankings?
  • Big drops in remittance, exports make reserves struggle harsher
    Big drops in remittance, exports make reserves struggle harsher
  • Shahjahan Bhuiyan’s parents and two out of his three siblings passed away when he was behind bars. He missed all the funerals.  
Photo: Nayem Ali
    Hangman Shahjahan Bhuiyan: Life after 60 executions and 44 years in prison

MOST VIEWED

  • Paperfly aborts flight
    Paperfly aborts flight
  • Photo: TBS
    Habibur Rahman takes charge as 36th DMP commissioner
  • Some banks get more remittance. Is it for extra efforts, or higher dollar rates?
    Some banks get more remittance. Is it for extra efforts, or higher dollar rates?
  • How China's Belt and Road changing Bangladesh's  infrastructures
    How China's Belt and Road changing Bangladesh's infrastructures
  • Photo: TBS
    Dhaka traffic slowest in world: Study
  • US dollar banknotes are seen in this illustration taken on 10 March 2023. Photo: Reuters
    Remittance earnings in September lowest in 41 months

Related News

  • Biden to give democracy speech, fueling 2024 race with Trump
  • Donald Trump 'missing in action,' Ron DeSantis says at second Republican debate
  • Sundarbans sees crowds of tourists following 3-month ban
  • Donald Trump found liable for fraud in New York civil case
  • 22-day ban on hilsa fishing to start on 12 Oct

Features

Shahjahan Bhuiyan’s parents and two out of his three siblings passed away when he was behind bars. He missed all the funerals.  
Photo: Nayem Ali

Hangman Shahjahan Bhuiyan: Life after 60 executions and 44 years in prison

1h | Panorama
Illustration: Collected

Apology to a life forgotten to live

15h | Features
Photo: Kazi Ashraf Uddin

Coffee: More than a beverage, something of a beloved

18h | Features
The price back to the normal range is possible if the corporations who control the feed market reduce the feed and chick prices. Photo: Noor-A-Alam

Will eggs ever return to their 'normal' price?

20h | Features

More Videos from TBS

Everything about the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 stadiums: Part 1

Everything about the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 stadiums: Part 1

12h | TBS SPORTS
Apple is bringing new software updates to prevent overheating

Apple is bringing new software updates to prevent overheating

14h | Tech Talk
A unique study cafe in the city

A unique study cafe in the city

13h | TBS Stories
Reserves are falling even as the dollar's share of global payments rises

Reserves are falling even as the dollar's share of global payments rises

17h | TBS Economy
EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]