It's True, Social Media Moderators Do Go After Conservatives

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter nearly two years ago – a $44 billion acquisition he tried to pull out of – the mogul has driven a narrative that moderation of the microblogging website disproportionately targeted conservatives, libertarians, and Trump supporters.

A scientific paper published in the journal Nature this week confirms that was the case, with justification. The groups more likely to be subjected to moderation were also more likely to share misinformation from low-quality news sites.

"Concerns of bias against conservatives also contributed to Elon Musk's decision to purchase Twitter in 2022 and to roll back various anti-misinformation policies (such as reinstating many suspended users)," said researchers led by Oxford University associate professor Mohsen Mosleh in the paper.

The research points out that, in the United States, critics claim conservatives and Republicans are purposefully targeted by social media moderators because of their political orientation. For example, Donald Trump said that Twitter "totally silences conservatives' voices," while US congressman Jim Jordan claimed academics, social media platforms, and the government colluded to censor conservatives.

After Musk took over Twitter, he stripped out much of the moderation team tasked with tackling misinformation on the platform – now branded as X – and reinstated a number of previously suspended right-wing users, including former president Donald Trump.

The researchers analyzed 9,000 politically active Twitter users during the US 2020 presidential election to consider whether they were disproportionately targeted by moderators based on their political persuasion.

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"Although users estimated to be pro-Trump/conservative were indeed substantially more likely to be suspended than those estimated to be pro-Biden/liberal, users who were pro-Trump/conservative also shared far more links to various sets of low-quality news sites," the paper says.

Political imbalance in enforcement need not imply bias on the part of social media companies implementing anti-misinformation policies

Who judges what is a low-quality news source? It turns out the result holds true when the quality of news was judged by a group composed solely of Republican laypeople and those balanced from a political perspective.

"We find similar associations between stated or inferred conservatism and low-quality news sharing in seven other datasets of sharing from Twitter, Facebook, and survey experiments, spanning 2016 to 2023 and including data from 16 different countries," the paper says. "Thus, even under politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected. Political imbalance in enforcement need not imply bias on the part of social media companies implementing anti-misinformation policies."

To celebrate his acquisition of Twitter, Musk presented an unedifying spectacle by carrying bathroom furniture into the office to make a pun on the social media trope "let that sink in."

If only it were so easy to flush his misguided assumptions about social media moderation bias down the drain. ®