Shelly Palmer

Did Deplatforming Really Reduce Misinformation?


 

Every major news outlet is reporting that election misinformation has dropped more than 70 percent since Trump was deplatformed from the major social media sites. Most reports cite findings by commercial business intelligence firm Zignal Labs. The stat most often quoted is that “conversations about election fraud fell from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 across several social media sites.”

Is this true? If you Google it, you will find hundreds of news outlets and blogs quoting it. Does that make it true? Dig a little deeper. Go find the original press release or a document from Zignal Labs with the raw findings. How was the study conducted? Is this stat cherry-picked? Is it an outlier? Is there a trend? Do the work and let me know what you find.

Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.