But all that anxiety assumes that Twitter was dealing with misinformation effectively in the first place. Along with my research team — Kyle Rose, Sarah Warren, and Rob Lytle — I see that misinformation continues to spread on the platform. Musk’s takeover isn’t the only problem Twitter has with managing the reliability of its information.

Twitter bans don’t improve online discussion

In his Rules and policies, Twitter writes that the platform is intended to facilitate human connection and help users find reliable information. Twitter warns that it can permanently suspend an account “that misleads others and/or disrupts their experience”.

The policy assumes that bans affect conversation and information and that removing influential accounts spreading misinformation should improve the quality of information and discussion. Some research confirms this. But our study analyzes the influence of bans on a political issue and finds the opposite.

We dove deep into tweets about Arizona’s independent audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 presidential election ballots, backed by pro-Trump politicians who argued that Democrat Joe Biden had not won the state. On July 27, 2021, Twitter permanently suspended eight high profile accounts associated with the audit and known to spread lies about the presidential election. What happened?

We used DiscoverText and academic credentials provided by Twitter to gather a sample of 245,020 tweets that included the words “Arizona audit” or the hashtag “#Arizonaaudit” and were sent between July 17 and August 5, 2021 , several days before and after Twitter. ban accounts. These dates seemed sufficient to assess the conversation beforehand and whether the ban had changed it. We specifically looked at the most influential accounts before, during and after the ban.

We started by analyzing the 148 Twitter user accounts whose tweets were retweeted 200 times or more in the total sample. These 148 accounts represent 55.4% of the total of 245,020 relevant tweets, which means that these 148 audit tweets, which did not include the banned accounts, were shared 135,797 times.

We used a technique called qualitative content analysis to detect categories and themes in the data, carefully examining the 148 accounts for dozens of pieces of information so we could systematically see which types of accounts were retweeted the most. , whether they support or oppose the audit and why. , whether they shared additional content with their tweet and, if they shared a news story, the quality of the information they shared. If a news story was shared, we categorized it using the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart, which rates sources based on news value, reliability, and bias. The table is useful because the company has a robust system for coding items and works to mitigate bias in its coding and sampling. We also noted whether these accounts shared photos, memes, images, quotes, or other materials with their post.

Twitter has banned Marjorie Taylor Greene. It might not hurt him much.

The ban spurred retweeting from right-wing personalities, media and content

Before Twitter suspended the Arizona audit accounts, the most frequently retweeted accounts were mainstream and left-leaning journalists, who were broadly critical of the audit. After the ban, we found fewer tweets citing sources opposed to the audit; right-wing figures peddling conspiracy theories and right-wing partisan media dominated.

To better understand this change, we analyzed the 10 accounts with the most retweets on each of the days included in the sample, excluding the day of the ban. Prior to the ban, right-wing personalities and media accounted for just 9.6% of the 51,164 tweets sent by these accounts. After the ban, right-wing personalities and media accounted for 40.1% of the 37,773 most retweeted posts by these accounts.

The ban had no effect on the most prolific accounts

We also analyzed the top 10 tweeting accounts – meaning the accounts that sent the most tweets – each day, a total of 200 accounts, to better gauge which accounts were trying to influence the debate. We used bot sentinel, a tool that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to categorize account behavior according to Twitter policies, as well as analytics to determine the type of content they typically share.

Most of the 200 accounts leaned politically to the right. Additionally, when we focused on the most tweeting account for each day in the sample, a total of 20 accounts, we found that these accounts were always on the right. Additionally, 18 of those 20 accounts spread right-wing conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and the left more generally. The two most prolific accounts sent 1,729 tweets about the conspiracy theory during the 20-day window, including one of the most retweeted comments before the ban and two after the ban.

In short, the ban did not harm users’ ability or willingness to spread misinformation.

The ban does not diminish the audience of disinformation

We explored the relationships between the accounts whose audit-related tweets were retweeted most often, the accounts that sent the most audit-related tweets, and their followers. To understand whether communities form and share information, we included the different accounts in a social network analysis, which uses graph theory and networks to explore data structures.

We found two communities of right-wing accounts that tweeted and retweeted each other during this time. Although we don’t know if all the tweets were about the audit, the communities are different. One of them used hashtags to express his support for Donald Trump and traditional conservative causes, such as opposing abortion and supporting gun rights. The other used hashtags to express his support for Trump and to champion more right-wing and conspiratorial causes, such as banning sharia law, proclaiming pedophilia evil and claiming the country suffers from psychosis of mass.

The Twitter ban had virtually no effect on the conspiratorial community.

Twitter amplifies conservative politicians. Is it because users are laughing at them?

Does recovery count?

Many fear that Musk is letting misinformation flow freely. But that assumes that Twitter is currently stopping the spread. This is not what we find. Bans do not necessarily improve discussion or the quality of information shared on important political issues. Additionally, bans do not prevent radical accounts from finding each other or slow down their sharing of misinformation.

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Deana A. Rohlinger (@DeanaRohlinger1) is a professor of sociology and director of research at the Institute of Politics at Florida State University.