CALIFORNIA, USA — Researchers found sharing of election misinformation substantially decreased in the week since President Donald Trump was banned from major social media sites.
The Washington Post reported Zignal Labs found it decreased 73 percent since Jan. 8 and use of the hashtag “Fight for Trump” decreased more than 90 percent.
“I think that big tech is doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country. And I believe it's going to be a catastrophic mistake for them. They're dividing and divisive and they're showing something that I've been predicting for a long time,” said Trump in response to the ban.
The social media companies have been criticized by some for not acting earlier and others for overreacting. Tech experts said it shows the power of these companies and the algorithms used to keep users engaged.
"What we are seeing when we go online is likely to be that which is most sensational or inflammatory. They're predicting whatever is most likely to grab people's attention,” Ramesh Srinivasan, an author and professor at UC Los Angeles, told CBS Sunday Morning. “The danger is it's going to present us with an extremely distorted view of reality. The fringe becomes the new normal."
Trump may move to a different social media platform. Parler, a growing social media network for conservatives, was temporarily suspended by Amazon Web Services last week.
Social media companies are not obligated to allow all users to post anything they want.
“They are not subject to the 1st Amendment. They are not the government,” said Daphne Keller, Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center on CBS Sunday Morning. "People who want to sue platforms and force them to carry speech have a double First Amendment problem. First of all, those people don't have a First Amendment claim against the platforms, and second of all, the platforms do have a First Amendment argument against being forced to carry speech they disagree with."
