In the aftermath of the United States Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, former President Donald Trump, among others, was suspended from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The platforms cited their own rules against instigating violence.
Many of those banned have since migrated to other, lesser-known platforms that are often less moderated. Trump has also announced he will be forming his own media company, although it has yet to launch and is under investigation by securities regulators.
Still, "deplatforming" appears to work — in the week after Trump and some of his supporters were booted from those platforms, one study found misinformation across a few big social sites, including Facebook and Twitter, dropped 73%.
We speak with media experts to understand the convergence of deplatforming, social media and what free speech means in the digital age.
GUESTS
Shannon Bond, tech correspondent for NPR
Nandini Jammi, co-founder of the Check My Ads Institute
Shannon McGregor, assistant professor at the UNC Hussman School of Media and Journalism and senior researcher for UNC’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life