Abstract
Content moderation on social media is at the center of public and academic debate. In this study, we advance our understanding on which type of election-related content gets suspended by social media platforms. For this, we assess the behavior and content shared by suspended accounts during the most important elections in Europe in 2017 (in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany). We identify significant differences when we compare the behavior and content shared by Twitter suspended accounts with all other active accounts, including a focus on amplifying divisive issues like immigration and religion and systematic activities increasing the visibility of specific political figures (often but not always on the right). Our analysis suggests that suspended accounts were overwhelmingly human operated and no more likely than other accounts to share “fake news.” This study sheds light on the moderation policies of social media platforms, which have increasingly raised contentious debates, and equally importantly on the integrity and dynamics of political discussion on social media during major political events.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Social Media and Society |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Work on this article has been partially supported by Google UK as part of the Google News Initiative.
Funders | Funder number |
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Google News Initiative | |
Google UK |