Social media suspensions may be linked to misinformation, not platform bias: Study

Social media platforms’ suspensions of accounts may not be rooted in political biases, but rather certain political groups’ tendency to share misinformation, according to a new study.

The study, published this week in the journal Nature by researchers from Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pushes back on the argument — often made by Republicans — that social media platform content moderation policies unfairly target certain political identities to censor partisan speech.

The study found that while conservatives and supporters of former President Trump are more likely to have their posts removed on social media or their accounts suspended than liberals and President Biden supporters, this is not necessarily because of discriminatory policies, but potentially because conservative and pro-Trump are more likely to share misinformation.

Researchers first analyzed 9,000 politically active accounts on the social platform X during the 2020 presidential election and found users were who pro-Trump or conservative shared significantly more links to “various sets of low-quality news sites.”

This included sites where the news was determined to be from politically balanced groups of individuals, or groups of only Republican people, and was more likely to be from bots, researchers stated.

Accounts that shared #Trump2020 during the 2020 election were 4.4 times more likely to have been suspended than those that shared #VoteBidenHarris2020, researchers said.

The study also found similar trends in other data sets from X, Facebook and surveys from 16 countries from 2016 to 2023.

“Thus, even under politically neutral anti-misinformation polices, political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected,” researchers wrote. “Political imbalance in enforcement need not imply bias on the part of social media companies implementing anti-misinformation polices.”

While the study suggests uneven treatment of political parties does not necessarily mean there is bias at work, researchers noted to The Washington Post this does not prove social media companies are completely unbiased.

Technology companies have faced mounting pressure in recent years to curb misinformation, prompting platforms to develop content moderation policies that some users, including politicians, have alleged are virtually censorship of their views.

The latest study follows a series of others showing Republicans have increased their sharing of falsehoods and conspiracy theories over the last several years.

Republicans have long accused tech companies of stifling their views on their platforms, often pointing to the suspensions of well-known political figures or pundits, notably including Trump, who was suspended from X in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

X owner Elon Musk restored Trump’s account last year amid a slew of other content moderation changes, which drew praise from right-wing personalities and concerns from online misinformation groups.

During this week’s vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) brought up censorship, alleging Vice President Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wants to use the power of the government and big technology companies to silence people.

“I believe that we actually have a threat to democracy in the country, but unfortunately, it’s not the threat of democracy that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wants to talk about,” he said. “It is the threat of censorship. Americans casting aside lifelong friendships because of disagreements over politics.”

The Hill reached out to X and Meta for comment.

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