The Role of Suspended Accounts in Political Discussion on Social Media: Analysis of the 2017 French, UK and German Elections

Majo-Vazquez, Silvia, Congosto, Mariluz, Nicholls, Tom ORCID: 0000-0002-6971-8614 and Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis (2021) The Role of Suspended Accounts in Political Discussion on Social Media: Analysis of the 2017 French, UK and German Elections. SOCIAL MEDIA + SOCIETY, 7 (3). p. 205630512110272.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20563051211027202

Abstract

<jats:p>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.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	social media, content moderation, information disorders, platform governance, elections, democracy, Twitter, comparative research, bots, news consumption
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of the Arts
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	13 Jul 2021 07:12
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 21:36
DOI:	10.1177/20563051211027202
Open Access URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/205630512...
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3129789