Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban
Content moderation — the regulation of the material that users create and disseminate online — is an important activity for all social media platforms. While routine, this practice raises significant questions linked to democratic accountability and civil liberties. Following the decision of many p...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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HOPE
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media |
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| Online Access: | https://journalqd.org/article/view/3424 |
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| _version_ | 1849764918187786240 |
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| author | Meysam Alizadeh Fabrizio Gilardi Emma Hoes K. Jonathan Klüser Maël Kubli Nahema Marchal |
| author_facet | Meysam Alizadeh Fabrizio Gilardi Emma Hoes K. Jonathan Klüser Maël Kubli Nahema Marchal |
| author_sort | Meysam Alizadeh |
| collection | DOAJ |
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Content moderation — the regulation of the material that users create and disseminate online — is an important activity for all social media platforms. While routine, this practice raises significant questions linked to democratic accountability and civil liberties. Following the decision of many platforms to ban Donald J. Trump in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, content moderation has increasingly become a politically contested issue. This paper studies that process with a focus on the public discourse on Twitter. The analysis includes over 9 million tweets and retweets posted by over 3 million unique users between January 2020 and April 2021. First, the salience of content moderation was driven by left-leaning users, and "Section 230" was the most important topic across the ideological spectrum. Second, stance towards Section 230 was relatively volatile and increasingly polarized. These findings highlight relevant elements of the ongoing process of political contestation surrounding this issue, and provide a descriptive foundation to understand the politics of content moderation.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ec11e42e42da43adb6dca27745b7805a |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2673-8813 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2022-10-01 |
| publisher | HOPE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media |
| spelling | doaj-art-ec11e42e42da43adb6dca27745b7805a2025-08-20T03:05:01ZengHOPEJournal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media2673-88132022-10-01210.51685/jqd.2022.023Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's BanMeysam Alizadeh0Fabrizio Gilardi1Emma Hoes2K. Jonathan Klüser3Maël Kubli4Nahema Marchal5University of ZurichUniversity of ZurichUniversity of ZurichUniversity of ZurichUniversity of ZurichUniversity of Zurich Content moderation — the regulation of the material that users create and disseminate online — is an important activity for all social media platforms. While routine, this practice raises significant questions linked to democratic accountability and civil liberties. Following the decision of many platforms to ban Donald J. Trump in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, content moderation has increasingly become a politically contested issue. This paper studies that process with a focus on the public discourse on Twitter. The analysis includes over 9 million tweets and retweets posted by over 3 million unique users between January 2020 and April 2021. First, the salience of content moderation was driven by left-leaning users, and "Section 230" was the most important topic across the ideological spectrum. Second, stance towards Section 230 was relatively volatile and increasingly polarized. These findings highlight relevant elements of the ongoing process of political contestation surrounding this issue, and provide a descriptive foundation to understand the politics of content moderation. https://journalqd.org/article/view/3424Social mediaContent moderationTwitterpublic discourse |
| spellingShingle | Meysam Alizadeh Fabrizio Gilardi Emma Hoes K. Jonathan Klüser Maël Kubli Nahema Marchal Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media Social media Content moderation public discourse |
| title | Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban |
| title_full | Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban |
| title_fullStr | Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban |
| title_full_unstemmed | Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban |
| title_short | Content Moderation As a Political Issue: The Twitter Discourse Around Trump's Ban |
| title_sort | content moderation as a political issue the twitter discourse around trump s ban |
| topic | Social media Content moderation public discourse |
| url | https://journalqd.org/article/view/3424 |
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