Individual-Level Moderating and Differential Effects of Deplatforming

This study examines the individual-level impact of Twitter’s `Great Deplatforming’ in the aftermath of the 6 January 2021 insurrection and attack on the US Capitol. This event saw Twitter ban several thousand accounts, ostensibly to limit misinformation about voter fraud, suppress calls for violence, and increase platform quality. In this work, we leverage a survey of Twitter users run during the 2020 election period to investigate the individual-level impacts and behaviors of Twitter’s Great Deplatforming. We test the degree to which this deplatforming coincided with pro- and anti-social changes in behavior associated with posting frequency and polarization. Using a news sharing-based ideology measure, validated against self-reported partisan lean and party affiliation among respondents, we measure changes in partisan sharing over time and explore changes in user activity pre- and post-deplatforming. Our findings demonstrate a largely pro-social change in polarization, where the majority of ideological bins become more moderate (all liberal bins and “somewhat conservative”/“conservative” actors), with only “very conservative” actors appearing more partisan/extreme. Results around post frequency are more mixed, however, with many groups expressing increased post frequency, but somewhat liberal, somewhat conservative, and conservative groups become less active, though only “somewhat liberal” and “conservative” groups appear significant. Taken together, these results suggest a positive outcome for liberal and moderate actors, whereas conservative actors—those more likely to be deplatformed–exhibit more mixed effects, more indicative of self-censorship or overall disengagement with Twitter rather than platform migration.