Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37954163›Full record

ArticlePNAS nexus2023

The systemic impact of deplatforming on social media.

Amin Mekacher, Max Falkenberg, Andrea Baronchelli

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PNAS nexus, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
5.2field-weighted citation impact, top 3% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Amin MekacherDepartment of Mathematics, City University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.
Max FalkenbergDepartment of Mathematics, City University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2986-2494
Andrea BaronchelliDepartment of Mathematics, City University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0255-0829
City, University of London · GBTuring Institute · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Deplatforming, or banning malicious accounts from social media, is a key tool for moderating online harms. However, the consequences of deplatforming for the wider social media ecosystem have been largely overlooked so far, due to the difficulty of tracking banned users. Here, we address this gap by studying the ban-induced platform migration from Twitter to Gettr. With a matched dataset of 15M Gettr posts and 12M Twitter tweets, we show that users active on both platforms post similar content as users active on Gettr but banned from Twitter, but the latter have higher retention and are 5 times more active. Our results suggest that increased Gettr use is not associated with a substantial increase in user toxicity over time. In fact, we reveal that matched users are more toxic on Twitter, where they can engage in abusive cross-ideological interactions, than Gettr. Our analysis shows that the matched cohort are ideologically aligned with the far-right, and that the ability to interact with political opponents may be part of Twitter's appeal to these users. Finally, we identify structural changes in the Gettr network preceding the 2023 Brasília insurrections, highlighting the risks that poorly regulated social media platforms may pose to democratic life.

Identifiers

PMID37954163
PMCPMC10638500
OpenAlexW4388271447

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.