Due to the various restrictions on fake news and extremist speech at the end of the Trump administration, including the banishment of the president himself across multiple networks, U.S. conservatives have portrayed themselves as victims of social media silencing and persecution. In one published report Now, researchers at New York University (NYU) report that they have found no evidence of censorship to conservatives promoted by social media.
The report by NYU's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights also points to an attempt by platforms to appear impartial, seeking and continuing to seek ways to appease the most radical conservatives. These social media practices end up reinforcing the contradiction in complaints about the silencing of the voices of this ideological group.
Rhetoric after Trump
Paul Barrett, the NYU report’s lead researcher, laments the continuation of practices that should have at least diminished after the defeat of the Capitol extremists and the inauguration of Joe Biden. Citing even the behavior of Fox News, which systematically gives space to dissatisfied Trumpists, Barrett says that, “Instead of all this going away with Trump leaving Washington, it’s just getting more intense.” The researcher adds that the victimization speeches made by conservatives have become clearly political rhetoric.
The research that resulted in the report was done with data from analysis platforms Crowdtangle e News Whip. Other indicators also came from studies carried out in 2020 by the platform Politico and by the London think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The final result, in addition to finding no evidence of censorship of conservatives, showed that the types of speech that most dominated social media came from conservative accounts.
Citing Twitter as a leader in moderation, Barrett said that networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter itself may have made mistakes in their recent policy adjustments in the event of violations. However, their responses after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Trump's ban from the platforms showed that they acted in accordance with their terms against inciting violence.
Recommendations for the future
The report, which found no evidence of censorship of conservatives, also presents some recommendations for social media platforms to become healthier environments. Among the necessary actions are improved presentation of their moderation terms and more freedom for users to customize their social media feeds.
The researchers emphasize the importance of increasing the number of human moderators on social media, hired directly by the platforms and not as outsourced contractors. Better relationships between social media companies and political actors are also recommended, as well as greater clarity in software documentation. This does not necessarily mean access to all the code and algorithm content, but it does mean a better possibility for people to understand the decisions being made by the networks.
Through which channels you reach those people, classic and out of the box. The Verge
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